I’ve been trying for a few days to write this review, and it’s been stumping me a bit. It’s not like when I reviewed Gogol Bordello’s Transatlantic Hustle a while back, where I just couldn’t get through the record. Big TV is not a bad album; it’s pleasant, fairly mild, nothing shocking or hard to listen to.
And that’s just it. I’m struggling to review White Lies’ third album because there just isn’t really much to say about it. It doesn’t suck. It also doesn’t do anything all that interesting or exciting. The British press likes to compare White Lies to Joy Division and Interpol. Where I can see the Interpol similarity (and also don’t think they’re correctly compared to Joy Division), the edge and brittleness that marked Joy Division just aren’t there (though I grant I’ve only listened to Big TV – their other records might be different). There’s a certain mopiness to them that starts the comparison, but the instrumentation is all wrong and Harry McVeigh’s baritone sounds a lot more like Alex Kapranos than Ian Curtis. The soft syths on the sides float between mellow vocals and tight, subdued drumming; what White Lies really sound a lot like is a-Ha around their second and third albums, with a fair bit of Franz Ferdinand guitar sound amping it up slightly. Seriously. Listen to a few of these songs (especially “Scoundrel Days”) and then put on Big TV (of course, McVeigh doesn’t have Morten Harket’s soaring voice – he’s a bit more earthly).
Big TV definitely isn’t bad. “Mother Tongue” and “Getting Even” add some nice guitar grit and eloquent lyrical flourishes; the closer, “Goldmine”, has a bit of bite and vigor (especially in the drumming) that doesn’t exist on the rest of the record. But some of the other tracks are tedious. “Heaven Wait” is a couple minutes too long and very repetitive, while “First Time Caller” has some solid lyrics (and makes me think about watching Frasier), the music is a dull wash of synths that doesn’t do much.
Final Grade: C+. While it’s far from bad, Big TV doesn’t cover any really invigorating ground and frankly is a little dull. Use it as ambiance while doing homework. Otherwise, download “Mother Tongue” and “Getting Even”.
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