ALBUM REVIEW: White Lies – Night Lights

Play It Again Sam
Released: 07.11.25

White Lies jump into action with their seventh record, Night Light. By this point, their steady, guitar driven indie rock has developed into a cult obsession. Effortlessly 00s, with big hooks and a warbling British vocal, it’s a nostalgic sound that always brings me back to the dirty, low ceilings and flashing strobes of indie bars across the country, yet now, almost two decades into creating, the production is slicker and more prominently, there’s a calm and emotional dexterity throughout the tracks that maybe wasn’t there in the glory years of their biggest hits.

Night Lights isn’t doing anything too interesting or too new, but in looking back, we find elements of Bowie in the groove of Going Nowhere and shades of Jarvis Cocker in the theatrical storytelling on the title track. The album is simultaneously as flavoured with Foals and Arcade Fire as it is Aladdin Sane, and although not the most novel contribution to the musical conversation, it makes for a fun few moments.

I wouldn’t rush to the new White Lies album, as it isn’t saying much that the band haven’t already said and I can’t see it soundtracking the dancehalls the way the tracks that clearly inspired it continue to do, but that isn’t to say there isn’t enough happening here to make it a worthy interest. Night Light is black and white indie rock, no frills and no major crescendo, but even without any summits or mountainous highs, it’s a walk worth taking.