Immaculate Lies

I soon got to know some of this discerning crowd. A bunch of indie kids with the like of a few beverages and a matching thirst for music and their home City in particular. Perfect. A few of them ran the Rockhouse rehearsal studios in Gosford Street. It became a focal point for a hybrid of collective local musical talent. They had a recording wiz kid in their ranks in Daz Wood who went on to run his own successful Hush studio. A band project emerged in the next few years called, Lies. They made a few EP's and an album in 1992 before embarking on an hiatus that made the Stone Roses second album recording marathon look like a smoke break.

Then in 2011 they released a album called History, which as the title suggests was a collection of their work. It was well received and working as a duo consisting of John Docker and Dean Lovell, new songs began to emerge. The result is the new album, The Reaper's Blues. Like the featured pictured album cover heading this article suggests, it's a work of twisted beauty.

John's dub influenced bass mixes well with Dean's growling menacing vocals that also carry a hint of melancholy. Just a bit mind. These guys come across like they are as angry and hungry now as kids tend to be at seventeen. Like Jah Wobble and Nick Cave in a bad mood come creative spell they have rattled off nine top tracks that deserve a decent hearing.

My favourite song is the slowest, almost ballad like, excellently titled Dirty Shades of May. It's a work of rare beauty, a slow burner where Dean sings with a sense of longing. Like most of the tracks the guitar is used sparingly but every note counts. It's a clever album in that you can listen to the songs in come down mode or as a gee up that reminds you there is still some fine songwriters out there amid the usual crop of pop chart pap.

Like the title track where Dean takes us on a trip through, "These hallowed halls" the beginning of a lyrical journey with disturbing imagery or at least it was when I listened to it with the lights dimmed. The mood is contrasted and yet compounded on this song by some fine backing vocals. In a lot of the songs you hope that Dean is singing about an imagined world rather than finding bleakness in the one we live in but you know that he isn't. 

Nicely offset by the pulsating bass and cleverly programmed drum sounds you can easily imagine the late great John Peel warming  to this if only he was still with us. For like the best work he showcased, Lies have influences but use them to create a sound that is uniquely their own. To take the pun of "Dirty Shades" the public deserve a damn good spanking if this work is ignored. It's available to download or stream on Bandcamp, pay what you like. 

The duo have created an album where you feel their love of spacious sound yet a hate of the claustrophobic elements of modern life. They are one of Coventry's great hidden musical secrets. It's time these Lies were out in the open.