Editors- EBM
A band who have never stood still creatively, EBM is a breathlessly heavy step up and Editors’ most leftfield material yet
On their seventh album the band take us on a journey though industrial-led rock. Yes seriously...
I’ve always admired bands who don’t stand still, who change their style as their musical ears and tastes evolve. Some artists can get away with treading the same path and good for them if that’s their bag, but for me I’ll always admire those that switch it up and go for something different.
Editors have never been afraid to make that change from album to album. Whilst their first two records (debut The Back Room and sophomore LP An End Has A Start) their third (In This Light And On This Evening) saw them lean on electro-pop and a complete switch. The changes may have lost them some listeners in the UK but across Europe they get it. And they will absolutely get this LP.
A band who have never stood still creatively, EBM is a breathlessly heavy step up and Editors’ most leftfield material yet – a thrilling, unrelenting thrust of full-bodied electro-industrial rock. The album title is an acronym of Editors and Blanck Mass but also a knowing reference to Electronic Body Music, the potent sound that originated in the 1980s and which has hugely influenced Editors’ new material, where the synths of bands like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242 and DAF hammer darkly amongst smoke machines, strobe lights and the smell of leather.
Adding Benjamin John Power, aka Blanck Mass as a full time member to the band is a genius move. If you know his work you’ll get why they asked the Ivor Novello Award-winning composer to join them, if you don’t then be prepared for sone serious heart stomping, electro beats behind the wide range of lead singer Tom Smith’s vocals.
Unrelenting, hedonistic, wildly oscillating and at times feverish, EBM connects with both the physical and the emotional. Karma Climb begins with a brooding Joy Division intro that leaps into dancehall atmospherics. Kiss is just under eight minutes long and runs through a wide range of emotions and influences, it is like Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys are meeting up with New Order in an Uber. The highlight of the record for me, it is a stadium built anthem and is an incredible piece of work.
We still get the heartfelt version that we’ve become accustomed to on tracks like Silence (the guitar hasn’t been dropped completely thanks to this song) and Strawberry Lemonade which discusses turbulent times “Can you feel the broken nation?” sings Tom over another 80′d led, The Cure like hook.
EBM plays tribute to both industrial rock and electronic dance music, it also has hints at their previous work. It is a record that consumes you and takes you on a proper journey if you let it. Editors have moved on (whilst dragging 80′s industrial pop along for the ride) and you should move on with them.
9/10
