Something strange is going on with the albums of White Lies. Where - certainly in England - the music press usually catches on to a fresh debut, only to lose interest gradually, it's exactly the other way around for this wavetrio from London, fascinated by death. The successful debut album
To Lose My Life (2009) received an average score of just enough (5.8) from the press according to the Metacritic
… website. Its successor Ritual did only slightly better (6.0). Via Big TV (6.4) and Friends (6.7), White Lies only really started to get the critics' attention in 2019 with Five (7.9). Meanwhile, the tour celebrating the debut's tenth anniversary simply sold out. Thus, White Lies is now a bunch of routinizers with quite a bit - er - to lose. But they needn't worry, because As I Try Not To Fall Apart does exactly what it's supposed to do. Consolidate what's good (the dark lyrics, the grand choruses of I Don't Want To Go To Mars and Blue Drift), and add some successful new touches here and there. Take the funk guitar in Am I Really Going To Die, or the prog rock winking Roll December. Everybody happy? (RME)more
