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Editors did pretty well with their difficult second album, taking
An End Has A Start to Number 1 in the UK charts and cementing the
band in the nation's consciousness. However, while that album seemed
lighter and more commercial than their debut The Back Room,
they encountered some criticism for essentially reproducing a similar
sounding album.
With that in mind, much has since been said about how with their
third album, In This Light And On This Evening, the band have
progressed, having eschewed their trusty guitar sound in favour of one
more synthesized. It's both understandable and positive that they've
decided to make that move rather than dourly churn out more of the
same. But, in the same way as the new disco direction of Yeah
Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz earlier this year turned out to not really
be that much of a disco direction, In This Light And On This Evening isn't as much of
a departure for Editors as some have claimed.
It's certainly true that they have made a step towards electro,
but what they've done is simply transpose a certain amount of
the instrumentation to keyboards. Whether it's on the moody, pulsing
title track or the Kraftwerk-inspired groove underlying Bricks
And Mortar, a straightforward synthesized aspect tends to appear
somewhere.
The superb You Don't Know Love incorporates the kind of
sounds that recall pop tunes of the 1980s, cutting away halfway
through for a dominant spiky guitar riff that repeats
through to the song's completion. Meanwhile Papillon stands out as a
ferocious slice of electropop with an urgency driving the song forward
into its deserved position of lead single.
But with Tom Smith's baritone voice in residence and their tendency
towards huge anthemic choruses, it's still unmistakably Editors. It's a
consistent album, but the
second half makes less of an impact. The experimental, industrial
sounding Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drawl tries something different again,
but isn't strong enough to really pull it off. And then there's some
typically unfortunate metaphors. Like Treasure's "You are what you
eat, you'll become digested... You are what you eat, you'll become
digestives" is particularly difficult to, er, swallow).
Not as engaging as The Back Room, nor as immediate as An
End Has A Start, In This Light And On This Evening is at least a solid addition to
Editors' catalogue and confirms that they can be relied on to produce a collection of
listenable songs. Their sonic departure won't be radical enough to put
off fans, but the ultimate feel is familiar enough not
to persuade any detractors. They may have taken a step forward, but
they're still on the same street.
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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
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INTERVIEW:
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