Originally posted on 18/10/09
In This Light and On This Evening - Editors - album review
Since their debut album, Editors have always been a straightforward band. The Back Room was straight-forward upbeat Interpol-eqsue postpunk driven by guitars. Their second album, An End Has a Start while going to number 1 was panned by fans but more well recieved by critics, saying it was a slow-grower. Hell it took me the best part of 6 months to appreciate it for one of the best albums of 2007, which it was. It was similar to their debut however, with all guitar driven tracks apart from the mournful closer Well Worn Hand.
In This Light and On This Evening however marks a change in their approach to songwriting which has inevitably brought out the critics saying it is their "most Joy Division-like album yet." Now before I started this review I said I wouldn't mention Joy Division but it's out the way now. Editors have always brought about comparisons to Salfords most famous sons, with a baritone frontman and sparse guitars and drums bringing together a very tight feel to the band, but everyone succumbs to the synthesiser, even.... Doy Jivision, and Editors have brought it here on their 3rd album.
ITLAOTE is not Closer. So lets get that bugbear out of the way early. Going almost completely electronic on the opening title track, the Darth Vader-tinged vocals give a taster of whats to come and how different it is from previous work by the band. The Casio-beat intro to second song Bricks and Mortar reinforces the message that the band have moved on and it is a good change. Every band has to evolve and while some bands try it and go weird but come back strong (Radiohead), some bands go weird and show no signs of recovery (Muse unless album #6 gets its act together), and then their are bands which change and are forever vilified for it. Joy Division (bah) done it, although their demise before their second album even came out could make them less relevant to the point i'm trying to make. Well it doesn't actually, but still.
Editors have created a work which while only coming in at 9 tracks (oh look, like Closer again) manages to be brilliant in each of those tracks. Lead single Papillon which, 2 minutes longer on album than single form, is probably their strongest most complete song today. You Don't Know Love and The Big Exit both manage to not bore you despite the wonderful songwriting method of repeating the same line over and over with barely a change. The rest of the album while not as strong as the opening 5 tracks, infact The Boxer is.... dreary pish if i'm honest, still holds up and manages to fit with the whole concept.
As a whole, ITLAOTE is a brilliant album. Probably the best of the year so far in fact, and it deserves to be. The musical advancement of the band as a whole far outweigh their shortcomings, the most prevalent of which is Tom Smith's songwriting. When there's a song on the album called "Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool" you know that the lyricist isn't going to be very strong, even when there can be a song like Papillon with the beautiful line "If there really was a God here/He'd have raised a hand by now." For that reason alone, Editors had to advance musically. Another guitar driven album with frankly weird lyrics would have simply left people scoffing at them, calling them a poor mans Interpol and an affront to postpunk. ITLAOTE avoids it though. And shows that the band are moving in a good direction, and aren't afraid to try new things, which is important in todays musical climate. Even if the Joy Division comparisons are an affront to the genius work of Ian Curtis.
No comments:
Post a Comment