The alt-rock group from Ealing, West London, have padded onto the charted rock scene with an appreciated, though bland, splash.

Their debut single "To Lose My Life" is the sort of track to be thrashed out on a rock band with your musically incapable amigos.  The thrusting, pulsating bass lines and epic guitar chords give us a fix of noughtie's alt-rock that (despite having heard it all before) still manages to give you a 3-minute fix of guitar-hero fervor.

McVeigh's baritone is particularly goose-pimple inducing.  "Let's grow old together and die at the same time", induces a ghostly howl from the new front man of ghoulish alt-rock - not forgetting the 80's backbeat accompaniment - slightly unfitting for the macabre lines, but a proven paradox.

Were it not for the flaccid, shrug-inducing lyrics - with Harry McVeigh's voice - we would have a band deserving of the stadium zeal the White Lies are undoubtedly going to generate over festival season.

Had I not heard it before, I'd be screaming their names from the rooftops.

6/10