ALBUM REVIEW: White Lies - To Lose My Life

I should probably begin by confessing that I have a tendency to go through honeymoon phases with albums (especially debut albums).  For some reason, debut albums tend to be a lot of bands' climax, only to spiral downhill from there.  So, I imagine the verdict remains out on White Lies until their sophomore release, but after my first listen I am REALLY pleased with album, To Lose My Life. There will undoubtedly be comparisons to melancholy post-punk bands past, but in light of much of the canned drivel that is passing for music these days, White Lies is refreshing. Despite their morose lyrics and cryptic melodies, White Lies have just enough zip to prevent suicide levels of depression from setting in.  I haven't counted (and I'm not going to) the references to death, dying, the end, etc., but I'm fairly certain that they're in every track.  It's not an angry fascination with death so much as it is a sense of fearing it.  You might get the impression that the songwriter is obsessed with it.

If they're able to maintain this level of music, White Lies is Echo & the Bunnymen for the noughties... right down to Ian McCulloch-sounding frontman, Harry McVeigh.

You might like White Lies if you like: ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, TEARS FOR FEARS, ARCADE FIRE, JOY DIVISION, INTERPOL, THE KILLERS

The Six Most Beautiful Minutes in the History of Cinema

Sancho Panza enters a cinema in a provincial city.  He is looking for Don Quixote and finds him sitting off to the side, staring at the screen.  The theater is almost full; the balcony - which is a sort of giant terrace - is packed with raucous children.  After several unsuccessful attempts to reach Don Quixote, Sancho reluctantly sits down in one of the lower seats, next to a little girls (Dulcinea?), who offers him a lollipop.  The screening has begun; it is a costume film: on the screen, knights in armor are riding along.  Suddenly, a woman appears; she is in danger.  Don Quixote abruptly rises, unsheathes his sword, rushes toward the screen, and, with several lunges, begins to shred the cloth.  The woman and the knights are still visible on the screen, but the black slash opened by Don Quixote's sword grows ever larger, implacably devouring the images.  IN the end, nothing is left of the screen, and only the wooden structure supporting it is visible.  The outraged audience leaves the theater, but the children on the balcony continue their fanatical cheers for Don Quixote.  Only the little girl down on the floor stares at him with disapproval.

What are we to do with our imaginations?  Love them and believe in them to the point of having to destroy and falsify them (this is perhaps the meaning of Orson Welles's films).  But when, in the end, they reveal themselves to be empty and unfulfilled, when they show the nullity of which they are made, only then can we pay the price for their truth and understand that Dulcinea - whom we have saved - cannot love us.