I will scatter on the floor

I started 2009 dismissing White Lies entirely.

But my position has shifted somewhat as the year’s gone on.

Not a complete thawing of the ice cold reception I initially gave them. Just a less cynical one. Where once I dismissed them as a thoroughly watered down version of Editors doing an impression of Interpol at their most Joy Division like, now I’m kind of seeing a little bit more to their shtick. They may well be heavily indebted to those bands but if you can see past that, they’ve actually got some pretty good songs. I don’t think they’re the sort of band that are ever going to appear in one of my best of lists but they’re one of those bands that fill a gap. You know the sort of thing I mean. One of those bands you stick on when you just need to listen to something familiar, pleasant and enjoyable that doesn’t need much attention paying to it. I admit, as ringing endorsements go, it’s not one you’re going to find on their next press release but hey, that’s just where I see them fitting in.

Anyway, the reason I’m writing a mildly positive post about them is that I’ve just come across their cover of Portishead’s ‘The Rip’. You’d be hard pushed to do a bad version of this song especially when you don’t stray too far from the template. But where the original was an understated brooding affair, this is more of a standard indie band cover. The kind cover of that replicates the song without capturing the intention, tone or feel of the original. Where Beth Gibbons conveyed the song’s emotion with an uncomfortably raw performance, this has the sense of a singer merely singing someone else’s words. Following the melody as opposed to feeling it. Where Portishead wrong footed you morphing unexpectedly from tender fragility into the pulsing rhythm track, this version practically signposts it’s intentions from the off. You’re under no illusions that the band are just itching to break into the propulsive ending. You can see it coming a mile away. Even if you'd never heard the original, you just know that at some point the song is going to build to a point where it will suddenly burst into life. In this version, there is no surprise. No moment of being caught off guard. No subtely. And when it comes, it’s pretty much as you’d expect. A bombastic display of 80s post punk synths and a dramatic guitar line replacing the driving electronic throb. While it might not touch the greatness of the original, it’s a pretty good run through. Kind of like White Lies themselves then.

White Lies - the rip (Portishead cover live session version) original version available on 'Third'

mp3 / music / white lies