Editors - Ebm - [Vinyl]

Editors have never been a band who do what�s expected. When they emerged in the early 2000s, university friends from Birmingham, they were swept into a wave of indie groups with whom they had little in common beyond playing guitars. Then, after their 2005 Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut The Back Room and 2007 #1 follow-up An End Has A Start, they switched up their sound for synths. That was their first act of bravery, says frontman Tom Smith, and they�ve been taking risks ever since. �We�re quite used to that feeling of scaring our audience with new material,� he says with a smile. �It seems to happen with every album,� agrees guitarist Justin Lockey. �We�ll do something that everyone really likes, and then we�ll go and do something else.� That �something else� is a breathlessly heavy step up, with their seventh album, EBM. It�s Editors� most leftfield material yet - a thrilling, unrelenting thrust of full-bodied electro-industrial rock. Another new dawn: Benjamin John Power - aka Blanck Mass - has co-produced the album and come aboard as an official member. To outside ears, it might seem like an unusual pairing: an anthemic rock band who�ve headlined Wembley Arena and an Ivor Novello-winning composer who is best known for his abrasive noise projects. Even Benjamin himself admits it was a �leap of faith�. But Editors� evolution makes perfect sense. They�ve toured with The Cure, of whom they are all huge fans, and are used to playing European festivals where they�re billed alongside harder acts. In Germany, for example, �we're not seen as some melodic indie band,� says Justin, �we�re seen as super goth.� He adds: �We talked about Rammstein quite a lot when we're making this record.� For the most part, EBM revels in maximalism. The battle cry of lead single �Heart Attack� sets out their stall, a twinkling rock ballad with a serrated, noirish undercurrent that lets rip into gloriously metallic riffage. From there, it�s a torrid release of beats, blips and broodiness: all killer, no filler; full-on but never overloaded. �Educate� is almost symphonic in scope, as Tom angrily intones about the uncertainty of modern times. �Strawberry Lemonade�, meanwhile, is an all-blooping, all-thwacking bodice-ripper, with drums that sound like they might punch out of the speakers. Album closer �Strange Intimacy� is �the most outrageous� of the album, says Tom - �not a particularly happy place to end, as it�s quite a bleak look at a relationship, but the arrangement of it gives it this theatricality.� It�s certainly the most ambitious Editors have ever sounded, where Justin�s �preposterous� guitar riff gives way, he says, to a �mad eight-minute techno odyssey� at the end.

Editors - Ebm - [Vinyl]

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