How it feels on our way today
Everything I do is a big mistake
A king and a riddle
I don’t feel very brave today
Sixteen years in and White Lies are still hitting their mark with precision, poise, and just the right dose of paranoia. The band has arrived at a place where they are comfortable enough not to flinch. “We finally know what we’re doing,” Harry McVeigh says, and on Night Light’s closer, In The Middle, that confidence barrels forward.
White Lies wrote much of the record in McVeigh’s flat, tossing the bells and whistles in favor of a stripped-back focus on chemistry. That ethos runs deep in the song and video alike: no padding, no polish, just punch. For the recording sessions, they brought in keyboardist Seth Evans, not as a sideman, but as an engine. You can hear it in the closing minutes of In The Middle…a controlled detonation carried out with precision.
In The Middle lands like a jolt of cold voltage to the spine, clicking into gear with a Motorik stomp, synths that shimmer like lit fuses, and basslines that march. The track unspools with tightly wound urgency, then blows open into an instrumental finish that feels less like a fadeout and more like liftoff. There’s nothing tentative here. It’s the sound of three musicians locked into something primal, finishing each other’s phrases without speaking.
It’s the kind of song you play when the night’s worn thin and the city’s still humming. A bittersweet confession wrapped in bruised romance and broken promises. It’s about love that limps along, mistakes you can’t take back, and the quiet ache of not feeling heroic. Two people circling the wreckage, still offering each other the keys.
But it’s the video, shot by longtime collaborator Andreas Nilsson in a 24-hour whirlwind through Bangkok, that lights a cigarette and throws the match. It’s all wide eyes and wider chaos: a fever dream stitched from streetlight paranoia, fractured identities, and elegant menace. The result is a surreal and clandestine work of art, the kind of Lynchian thing that makes you double-check your pulse and your passport.
“It’s as stylish and as unsettling a music video as you are likely to see,” the band gushes. “It’s pure cinema, we love it.
There’s nothing nostalgic about the reunion with Nilsson; it’s a mirror turned sideways. If their early videos leaned theatrical, this one leans dangerous. It’s both high fashion and fever break, a surreal blur of urban intensity that feels just grounded enough to unsettle.
This is White Lies fully awake. Clear-eyed, quick-footed, and finally, gloriously in the middle of exactly where they need to be.
Watch In The Middle below:
Since releasing their much-loved and widely acclaimed debut, To Lose My Life… in 2009, White Lies have steadily risen to become one of the UK’s most prominent guitar bands. Their last two album tours saw them sell out multiple nights at London’s Brixton Academy and the Hammersmith Apollo, while the past decade has cemented their global reach—with sold-out shows across Europe and beyond.
Listen to “In The Middle” below, and the previously released track, “Nothing On Me”:
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