White Magic For Lovers—The Book Of Lies (2025)
The long-awaited return of Thomas White! 7 years on from the last Fiction Aisle album, Jupiter, Florida, this is an album of love and grief and getting to 40 still intact.
Borne out of a solo endeavour initially, it sprinted over the line in the early portion of last year when Tom & Alfie White married and forged an Anglo American partnership under the White Magic For Lovers moniker. The new energy flowed into finishing off the album in their home studio in Hove, and the results are beautiful. Crafted. Naked. Lived experience poured out onto an album that distils all the harmonic, melodic wit and twists of Thomas’s talent, then contextualises them into charming and sometimes devastating vignettes of truth. Processing the raging pain of grief, hurt and loss, but determined to feel all of it to move through and past it.
Channeling the process of Mark Hollis and Brian Wilson, there’s always a desire for delicate lighter texture, tinged with a twist of darkness. The gift for crisp melody always punctuates, but somewhere along the line a little bassy throb, an unexpected guitar stab, an unusual chord change takes it somewhere else.
The flow of the record makes it feel like a coherent “set”, where each track sits where it should, rather than a cobbled together batch of songs. There are no skippers here. You’ll stick it on, and want the whole thing end to end. And even with numerous tracks over the 6 or 7 minute mark, nothing outstays its welcome. It’s paced masterfully.
Thus far, the reception towards the three “singles” has been strong. At least three 6 Music DJs have picked up on the songs, and the word of mouth ought to spread internationally pretty fast, for The Book Of Lies is a remarkable record that a lot of people are going to love to bits.
