Kevin Bronson on April 18th, 2009

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Coachella’s omnipresent Anglophile appetite was fed by White Lies, the sharp London outfit whose album “To Lose My Life” is the latest leaf to fall from the Joy Division/New Order tree. The band’s big melodies and overarching melancholy are perfect for radio, and anybody who likes the Editors, the Cribs, Interpol, Echo and the Bunnymen and Depeche Mode. And I do, you can bet your NME press clippings on that. But the pool of danceable post-punk is a awfully full by now, and the water is getting rank.

In the Mojave Tent, glowering frontman Harry McVeigh presented his hyper-romanticism as if it were a new approach, his deep-set eyes staring into the distance and compelling many female fans to watch with their fingertips over their hearts. The set was”  tight and tuneful and urgent. “Let’s grow old together / and die at the same time” goes one chorus, and you have to wonder, despite White Lies’ enviable buzz in the U.K., whether their music will even have a chance to age here.