I brought the Gaslight Anthem’s The ’59 Sound a few months ago and loved it. I excitedly text my friend telling him he needed the album in his life when asked “what does it sound like?” I was stumped (subsequently I can confidently say Bruce Springsteen) and struggled to ‘sell the album’.

I would love to be one of those people who can listen to an album and say that “there are elements of early 1990’s indie-pop explosion made famous by Oasis and Blur, whilst mixing the psychedelic 80’s rave” or something along those lines.

The music journey has got me listening to a few bands that I hadn’t heard before and a few ‘classic’ albums, however I noticed that I wasn’t getting much beyond the M60. I listened to the first James album as the next album. Put James into AllMusic and the similar artists that popped out were The Smiths and Stone Roses while Doves were listed as ‘followed’. The whole point of this was to be able to listen to new albums and new artists, staying in and around Manchester perhaps wasn’t the best way to do it.

 I got thinking that I don’t have to use a joined up approach to finding new albums and artists, besides it wouldn’t be much help if I kept coming back the Smiths and Oasis I wouldn’t find much diversity.

With that in mind I decided that the Music Project doesn’t have to be a ’dot-to-dot’ where each album\artist links to another.

A few weeks ago whilst looking for something to break up the boredom of exam revision I brought the issue of Q where they listed the best 250 albums in the last 25 years and NME’s most anticipated albums of 2011. Working though those albums (as well as continuing the dot-to-dot approach) seemed like a good idea, but wanted a bit of spontaneity.

I’m always buying new albums (Amazon and Play usually have great offers on and I’ve discovered that supermarkets have some great albums hidden at the back of the stands behind X-Factor winners who never released more than one album) and surely I could use some of my new purchases to drive forward the Music Project.

Which is what I am doing now. Starting with the most recent album I’ve brought – Ritual by White Lies.

I liked the White Lies first album – even though it was very dark, morbid and OBSESSED with death. The second  attempt is still dark but it’s more electronic. I can hear elements of the Smiths, but this album sounds similar to the Editors.

In fact this album can be summed up by thinking of “An End Has A Start” but with manic depressives!

 I’d first heard about Ritual at the back end of 2010 when the annual ‘albums of the year’ lists were being complied when they were doing the albums to watch out for sections and  I had seen it advertised for a few weeks and was quite excited by it, but hadn’t heard any of the singles. Usually when I buy a new album I listen out for the singles, but not knowing any of the songs I just listened to it from ‘cover to cover’. There are some very good songs on this album. From first listen it isn’t awe inspiring, some songs such as Strangers and the epic Bigger Than Us are instant classics whereas some of the later songs such as Holy Ghost and Turn The Bells get better and better with each listen.

The Smith’s influence is obvious on the lyrics, they have been carefully penned and as well as the lyrics there are some very Smith-esque hooks and guitar riffs.

Having done a bit of Googling around, there have been many mentions of similar sound to Joy Division, this may be the best place to continue the journey.

Ritual is much better album than the very good To Lose My Life, it’s a very solid album and must ensure that the White Lies get a crack at the difficult third album.

This entry was posted in New Release First Listen and tagged 2010's, British, Post-Punk Revival, White Lies. Bookmark the permalink.