‘80s reboots, eh? You can’t move for the things. Last year saw National Lampoon’s Vacation series and Poltergeist return to cinemas, while 2016 has seen a remake of Ghostbusters – which no-one seemed to have a problem with – and talk of more to follow in the shape of WarGames, Commando and amphibious romcom Splash.
A month or so on from the release of fourth album Friends, moody west London post-punkers White Lies have dipped into the playbook of moody north-west London post-punkers Killing Joke for their new video, ‘Morning In LA’. Those billowing flags are lifted straight from the Joke’s clip for the classic ‘Love Like Blood’, a fact which the band are only too happy to admit.
“We had been wanting to do a performance style video for a while and the Killing Joke video from which ours respectfully steals is an absolute classic of the genre”, says bassist Charles Cave. “When White Lies started, we received a fair amount of ‘gothic’ adjectives describing our music – something we always found quite funny. For ‘Morning in LA’, arguably our jolliest song yet, we thought the tongue-in-cheek gothic feel of the video was an appropriate aesthetic to go with.”
And if that aesthetic floats your boat, you can see the band on tour in the UK in a couple of weeks’ time, or in early 2017:
November
22 LONDON O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
24 NOTTINGHAM Rock City
25 MANCHESTER Albert Hall
26 LIVERPOOL Arts Club
27 GLASGOW O2 ABC
29 BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute
30 LEEDS University Stylus
December
1 BRISTOL O2 Academy Bristol
February
23 NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE O2 Academy Newcastle
24 SHEFFIELD O2 Academy Sheffield
25 OXFORD O2 Academy Oxford
27 CARDIFF University Y Plas
28 LEICESTER O2 Academy Leicester
March
2 PORTSMOUTH Pyramids
3 HULL University
4 LONDON Troxy
6 PRESTON Guildhall
7 ABERDEEN Garage
8 EDINBURGH Potterrow
9 HATFIELD Forum
11 STOKE Keele University
12 NORWICH Nick Rayns LCR