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White Lies are an English post-punk band from Ealing, London. Formerly known as Fear of Flying, the core band members are Harry McVeigh (lead vocals, guitar), Charles Cave (bass guitar and backing vocals), and Jack Lawrence-Brown (drums). The band performs live as a five-piece, when they are joined by Tommy Bowen and Rob Lee. White Lies formed in October 2007, after writing songs that they felt didn't suit their original band. After delaying their first performance for five months to build up media hype,[8] they earned a recording contract with Fiction Records days after their debut. The release of singles “Unfinished Business“ and “Death“ led to tours and festival appearances in the United Kingdom and North America, including a headline performance at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend and a place on the 2009 NME Awards Tour. At the beginning of 2009, White Lies featured in multiple “ones to watch“ polls for the coming year, including the BBC's Sound of 2009 poll and the BRITs Critics' Choice Award. White Lies’ tenth anniversary tour for debut ‘To Lose My Life…’, in late 2019 may have represented a reckoning for the band. On release in 2009, that record went to Number One in the UK, ultimately going gold; after a quick-fire 2011 follow-up, ‘Ritual’, underwhelmed, it feels as if the band has trucked along steadily, staunchly indebted to their influences and still steadily firing out soaring choruses, but never hitting the heights of their first album, either. While it’s hard to imagine the trio ever undergoing a wholesale reinvention, this sixth LP feels like the most vigorous reshuffling of their pack to date. By opening with a song agonising over mortality, ‘As I Try Not to Fall Apart’ directly references ‘To Lose My Life…’, but where ‘Death’ was a brooding anthem, ‘Am I Really Going to Die’ is remarkably poppy, recalling Franz Ferdinand with its funk-inflected guitar. While there’s a throughline with some of their more recent output - the nods to synth-pop remain myriad, especially on the title track - there’s room, too, for new territory, both lyrically - ‘I Don’t Want to Go to Mars’, a rebuke to Bezos, Branson and Musk, is unusually political - and sonically, as on the groove-driven ‘Blue Drift’ and atmospheric slow burn of ‘The End’. ‘As I Try Not to Fall Apart’ is a subtle evolution for White Lies - progress, after a while spent spinning their wheels. LYRICS: Am I a forty kind of man so tender in the heart? Our clues embedded and my hands are horoscope for cards No, I'm no special grain of salt nor undiscovered star 'Cause there's a great and holy plan I'd rather have no part Ain't that the way, ain't that the way You always unwind my head and make the bed like Sunday Ain't that the way, ain't that the way You get me talking to the dead and questioning if I'm alive at all Why every morning waking up Must I try not to fall, must I try not to fall apart? You take me in your grateful arms And I try not to fall, oh I try not to fall apart It's not the way a man like me behaves It's not the way the world will have me playing my cards And why does every fiber shake As I try not to fall apart, as I try not to fall apart? Am I a lone and lucky man, no shimmer to my soul? Am I a spindle wound too tight, a fraction of a whole? No, I have no party tricks, my hand is empty as a vault There's a charge then I'll stand into the time for every fault Ain't that the way, ain't that the way You always unwind my head and make the bed like Sunday Ain't that the way, ain't that the way You get me talking to the dead and questioning if I'm alive at all Why every morning waking up Must I try not to fall, must I try not to fall apart? You take me in your grateful arms And I try not to fall, oh I try not to fall apart It's not the way a man like me behaves It's not the way the world will have me playing my cards And why does every fiber shake As I try not to fall apart, as I try not to fall apart? Ain't that the way, ain't that the way You always unwind my head and make the bed like Sunday Ain't that the way, ain't that the way You get me talking to the dead and questioning if I'm alive at all Why every morning waking up Must I try not to fall, must I try not to fall apart? You take me in your grateful arms And I try not to fall, oh I try not to fall apart It's not the way a man like me behaves It's not the way the world will have me playing my cards And why does every fiber shake As I try not to fall apart, as I try not to fall apart? As I try not to fall apart As I try not to fall apart As I try not to fall apart As I try not to fall apart LYRICS VIDEO BY RADIO. CHECK OUT OUR STREAMING RADIO STATION AT HTTP://
