Real Lies Return with a Seven-Minute Meditation, "The Checks"

Right now in the UK we're in the golden era – the tail-end of April, the beginning of May – and the sun is out. Here, pollution clouds sit at the end of blue-skied London high streets, making the city feel like it exists inside a dome. Side-streets beside inner-city pubs are awash with armies of glasses and the slightly reddening hands clutching them. And freedom becomes riding public transport, sans-bag, debit card in back pocket. The scent of summer is in the air. Could this be the beginning of the rest of our lives? Is this where the fever dream begins?

When the clouds part, London – or indeed any other city in Britain – is intoxicating. As the weather heats up, things feel so alive that even the concrete breathes, pulsating. And it's at this point that the hedonism truly kicks in. With their debut record Real Life, London four-piece Real Lies distinctly captured the nuances of Britain's best (and, to the rest of the world, probably worst) quality. Now, after two and a half years away, they're back with a new tune, "The Checks" (watch below) – a song that treads similar cultural territory but through a new lens.

"'The Checks' is a list of questions arriving in a mind that knows it should be leaving," explains Kev Kharas, the group's lyricist. "It was written on the streets of London on a hot summer's night that was as lonely as it was euphoric." Essentially, then, the song touches on the darker side of going out. Obviously you can listen to it above and work out what the checks are yourself. Perhaps, providing you're the sort who does such a thing, it can be a mirror to the lost hours of a recent Thursday night – a euphoric hymn that should rotate around your head the next time you're in the living room of a stranger you've never met and will probably never meet again.

Released through Real Lies own UNREAL label, "The Checks" is also accompanied by a club night, launching on 15 of June in Dalston, east London. Maybe go there and run through the checks as you sweat your way through the venue. Sign up to their website here to keep in the loop, then head back up to the top of the page to watch the video once again, which is directed by London-based video artist and director Natalia Stuyk.

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