By Damian Jones
White Lies have already attracted a host of celebrity followers such as The Killers
Hotly tipped gloom rockers White Lies have admitted finally releasing their debut album will "be the proudest moment of our lives".
The west London trio, singer Harry McVeigh, bassist Charles Cave and drummer Jack Brown, spent the bulk of the summer laying down To Lose My Life with Pulp producer Ed Buller and The Killers knob twiddler Max Dingel at ICP Studios in Brussels.
"It was a really hectic experience because we recorded the album in about two months which is not long for how ambitious we were planning it to be," said the band's frontman.
"I just can't wait to get the album out there, it will definitely be the proudest moment of our lives."
Anyone who saw them at the Reading or Leeds Festivals earlier this year will have already had a taste of their dark cinematic sound which is driven by themes of "loss, sadness, anger and envy".
Radio 1's Zane Lowe has also expressed his love for the doom rockers too after he made their last single Death his hottest record in the world twice.
In fact the buzz around White Lies has snowballed so much, even the likes of Killers frontman Brandon Flowers has found himself name checking the band in interviews.
I just can't wait to get the album out there, it will definitely be the proudest moment of our lives
White Lies singer
"We're really happy with it," Harry said of the hype. "There's a lot of bands that complain about it but it can't be a bad thing.
"As long as we maintain the quality and the consistency in the recording and live shows hopefully we'll live up to that buzz."
Celebrity pulling power is nothing new to White Lies though.
Mark Ronson, Morrissey, Nick Cave and Kaiser Chiefs were all spotted in the crowd at one of their early gigs at the Camden Barfly in London while the band played on blissfully unaware.
"We didn't actually see them in the crowd at the time we just heard about it afterwards," Harry recalled.
"It was a really big compliment for us that they turned up, especially so early on. It's really cool to look back on that now too."
Two of the band's singles, Death and Unfinished Business, have enjoyed consistent airplay over the last six months.
But Harry is keen for their fans to hear more. "The rest of the album lyrically and musically is along the same lines as those two songs," he said.
"We take each song in a slightly different direction and we use a lot of different sounds to try to build a unique sound for each track.
"The album deals with darker themes because these issues connect with a lot of people and most people at some point in their life will have experienced those feelings."
The record skirts across a series of gloomy tales which contemplate death on a plane, a murderous lover's tiff and the end of the sun.
"Lyrically that song (Fifty On Our Foreheads) is very strange," Harry said.
"It is about the sun dying and people on earth sending big groups of kids up in a spaceship to resuscitate it. But they all die like in the film Sunshine.
"That song is also my favourite to play live and it was also the very last one we wrote and recorded in the studio."
For a number of the tracks, the trio also drafted in a huge orchestra to beef up some of the record's bolder moments.
"We always wanted a string section and it was an amazing experience being in a recording studio while 20 strangers were reading off a manuscript and playing our music." Harry said.
"You can hear them most on the tracks The Price Of Love and Nothing To Give where the strings are recurring the whole way through."
Comparisons have already been drawn with Editors, Echo & The Bunnymen and Joy Division while their decision to don all black leans closest to fellow merchants of gloom Interpol.
"When our MySpace page first started there were no photos of us and that was because we wanted it all to be about the music," Harry explained.
White Lies performing at T In The Park over the summer
"So in the first few shows we made a conscious decision to wear all black.
"Obviously since then we've realised that it fits in with the music. It's dark so we may as well wear dark clothes.
"It also looks good so that's why we do it.
"As for the music, when we started the band we listened to a lot of Interpol and Echo & The Bunnymen.
"Every band on the music scene these days would say they listened to Joy Division and we certainly did. They're definitely a very important band."
To Lose My Life is released on 12 January 2009.