I approach Real Lies’ music with some trepidation. Assimilated by a certain broadsheet into the slightly cringing phenomenon of ‘nu-lad’, their Madchester indebted sound can initially feel like just another example of pop eating itself, as the nostalgia cycle comes back round again in seemingly faster and faster revolutions.

This is all dispelled pretty quickly once the band finally takes to the stage. Atmospheric album opener ‘Blackmarket Blues’ kicks the evening off with a slightly rockier edge and more prominent guitars than expected. There’s two levels of nostalgia at play in Real Lies music: in sound, the various mutations of dance in the late 80’s and early 90’s and in their lyrical content, the early Noughties, pre-crash UK the band grew up in. “This song is about loosing you’re virginity in a lay-by when you’re 17” one song is introduced by lead singer Kev Kharas. Coming of age in the same period and sharing many similar formative experiences, I recognise much that Real Lies are talking about. But their lyrical attempts at poeticising or mythologizing a distinctly British small-town or inner city mediocrity and the occasional flashes of existential panic that come with it can sometime fall a bit flat. Occasionally a particular phrasing will cut through. “Every girl I loved at school / that got married to a ghost” captures the idealism of youth clashing violently with the drabness of a sometimes despairingly hollow reality. Either way it’s clear these are songs that reach people, with kids in full Adidas attire singing along with hands raised above their heads.

 

For ‘Deeper’ and a number other tunes in the middle of their set, Rea Lies are joined on stage by a backing singer, whose soulful, garage-house delivery adds emotional colour that’s lacking in the glassy eyed, post-night out drawl of Kharas’ monotone. Their set ends with a knockout one-two punch. First the piano house chord stabs of 'Seven Sisters', which could be from some long lost Nervous Records cut, followed by the arpeggio sleekness of ‘World Peace’, which recalls New Order at their peek. Sensing we’re coming to the end of the evening, the crowd decides to go for it and shifts into motion. Its a pretty impressive feet in itself for the group to even manage to get people dancing on a rather dreary and relatively early Monday evening. Despite these references, live, the band seem less interested in scoring points by hitting all the cultural signifiers their recorded music seems to prize so highly. They’re weightier in sound and pack more punch, pointing towards a potential future where they are more than merely the sum of their influences.

Louis Ormesher
Photos: Tom Barlow Brown