Editors EBM Vinyl LP 2022 – Default Title

Tracklist

1. Heart Attack
2. Picturesque
3. Karma Climb
4. Kiss
5. Silence
6. Strawberry Lemonade
7. Vibe
8. Educate
9. Strange Intimacy

Editors have never been a band who do whats 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 theyve been taking risks ever since. Were 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. Well do something that everyone really likes, and then well go and do something else. That something else is a breathlessly heavy step up, with their seventh album, EBM. Its 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 whove 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. Theyve toured with The Cure, of whom they are all huge fans, and are used to playing European festivals where theyre billed alongside harder acts. In Germany, for example, we’re not seen as some melodic indie band, says Justin, were 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, its 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 its quite a bleak look at a relationship, but the arrangement of it gives it this theatricality. Its certainly the most ambitious Editors have ever sounded, where Justins preposterous guitar riff gives way, he says, to a mad eight-minute techno odyssey at the end.