White Lies • BIG TV • Harvest Records • Producer: Ed Buller • Rating: 8/10
Raise your boom box over your head for the third studio album by the outfit formerly known as Fear of Flying. Like a love letter to the emo-laced, overindulgent Eighties of our rose-colored memories, the formerly indie-pop band now inspires comparisons to relics like Joy Division and Tears for Fears. For their part, the post-punk Londoners namedrop influences like Talking Heads and the Secret Machines as greater muses. The distilled truth remains immaterial and BIG TV is the throbbing, delectable evidence as bright, tightly wound melodies inspire visions of John Hughes movies, Manic Panic and cassette-toting, teenage milieu. Perhaps it’s unintentional, but relentlessly catchy tracks like “First Time Caller” and “Mother Tongue” conjure feelings of awkward adolescence in the best way possible. - Andy Kaufmann
