British band White Lies - Harry McVeigh (vocals/guitar), Charles Cave (bass) & Jack Brown (drums ) promoting new album, Ritual, in Toronto. (Alex Urosevic/QMI Agency)

British indie rock trio White Lies broke through with their 2009 album, To Lose My Life, with a gloomy Joy Division-like sound that soon had them tagged as an "'80s revival" act.

Still, the group - bassist-lyricist Charles Cave, vocalist-guitarist Harry McVeigh and drummer Jack Brown - saw the disc debut at No. 1 in their native England. The band also picked up best new band honours from Q and Mojo, sold close to one million copies worldwide, and got opening slots for the likes of Coldplay, Kings of Leon and Muse.

And even if the record didn't exactly run up the charts in North America, they might win over more fans with their followup disc, Ritual, produced by acclaimed British alt-rock producer Alan Moulder (Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails) released earlier this year.

"The U.S., it's so tricky to gauge always, every time you think you're making progress something else gets in your way," said Cave while in Toronto earlier this year with his bandmates.

"But Canada has always felt really good, right from the very start. Even the first show we came and did here at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto was really busy. I think it was even sold out and even though it was small at that stage, that was a really, really awesome thing to do. We've always had really good shows here. We have great fans here."

White Lies' current North American tour consists of dates at Montreal's Osheaga Music and Arts Festival on July 31, London, Ont.'s Music Hall on August 2 and Toronto's Phoenix on August 3.

Back in England they're used to playing large theatres in the 5,000-seat range like Brixton Academy.

"It's so nice to have that kind of range of shows that we're always doing," said Cave. "We never get into too much of a routine of playing in the same size venue. So suddenly, we'll be supporting someone maybe and doing an arena or doing a stadium somewhere, then the next day, we'll be doing a club show in South America in front of a few hundred people. It's really good. It keeps us interested. I wouldn't really like it if it was always doing exactly the same thing."

But do they aspire to reach the same heights as Coldplay or Kings of Leon one day?

If they do, Cave isn't saying.

"I'm perfectly content where we are right now and if nothing changed I wouldn't really mind," he said. "I think you have to really, really want it to reach that level. And I don't know if we really want it enough, to be honest. We're too interested in the music in some ways. And I don't know, I think you have to be a bit more interested in yourself and in the band as well to kind of get to that level as well. You can't just focus on the music.

"We're pretty low-key guys. We don't like to draw too much attention to ourselves as people. I think if we were to get to that level, the dream would be more down the Radiohead route where it just got kind of lucky and it happened that, that music connected with people on such a level that no one needs to know anything about the guys in the band, they just come to hear their favourite songs."

Turns out the making of Ritual had such wide-ranging influences as Peter Gabriel's fourth CD, Security, Bjork's Vespertine live album, Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps live album and After the Gold Rush.

Cave convened at McVeigh's parent's house in London for five weeks, quickly writing the album before another five-week recording period with Moulder.

"(Neil Young's) got such a huge back catalogue -- it's almost impossible to sift through it all," said Cave. "But you know he's written some amazing songs and I like the kind of poignant simplicity of some of his lyrics as well. They sound quite naive sometime but actually I think they're really important."

Spooky twins featured on album cover

The striking album cover for British indie rock band White Lies' sophomore disc, Ritual, features identical twin girls with dark red hair in braids and matching pale grey tops.

Think those spooky twins from The Shining but all grown up.

Turns out the group never even met them.

"We don't exactly know," said lyricist-bassist Charles Cave. "They were just cast. We saw a bunch of different identical twins and we picked those ones. They're from just outside London somewhere. I mean I wonder if they knew what they were letting themselves in for when they agreed to it. Because I think they hadn't done much modelling or another before, maybe a couple of low key magazine articles. There's some pretty big posters of them around certain cities. I guess they're pretty familiar."

WHITE LIES CANADIAN DATES:

Montreal -- July 31 -- Osheaga

London -- August 2 -- Music Hall

Toronto -- August 3 -- Phoenix

jane.stevenson@sunmedia.ca