The Ephemeric

Genre Indie Rock
Label Fiction
Producer Ed Buller, Max Dingel
Release date(s) 19th January 2009



I had high hopes for this album, as many of you regular readers know. After hearing the first single Death, which was amazing, the hype started building for this almost to a fever pitch. And following positive endorsements from big names in the music industry, like the Killers, this album quickly rose to the top of many people's most wanted lists, billed as the first major release of 2009.

As is the standard on this website, we were a bit ahead of the curve, talking up the potential of this album for months now, and listing it on our New Year's list of hot tips for 2009. So clearly White Lies had a lot to live up to, and unfortunately I have to say that they have not managed this.

Death, is an excellent excellent single, as I have already mentioned. Dark and bold, this melodic single channels the epic grandiosity of 80s new wave bands like Tears for Fears and raised high hopes of an album that would follow suit and maintain this sound.

Sadly the album, aside from this song, seems to devolve mostly into a wannabe Interpol/Editors style. The lyrics are mostly over the top and obvious, and every single chord seems forcefully designed to scream 'oo look how dark and epic we are'. It's all very forced, and this comes across in the slow and clunky songs that seem less about music and more about appealing to depressed and nihilistic teens. What this results in is an album ultimately devoid of any originality or soul of its own that is, sadly, still destined to draw many fans and much fame (and as such I'm maintaining that my prediction of this album being big was accurate, even though I don't like it).

I really wanted to like this album, but none of the songs will live long in the memory aside from Death. Fortunately this one song is good enough to gain the album an extra star on my overall score from what I would otherwise have given.