Tell me when this sounds familiar: A British post-punk band with a baritone lead singer, dance-hall rhythms, and a knack for singing about psychological terror release an album with a bleak black and white image on the cover. No, Joy Division hasn't called forth the ghost of Ian Curtis to record another album, the Editors just released their debut,
The Back Room. Throughout the vast space of time, primarily the 1950's on, there have been a few bands that are original and genius, tapping into areas of music never before touched, and as a consequence, there have been thousands of bands riding the coattails of their success and then using nearly identical sound to become popular. Editors are the latter. Hell, in pop-punk, you see it all the time. But in indie? Surely this cannot be! But such hot acts as gloomy man band Echo and the Bunnymen and The Smiths were so excellent in their cult-ish style, imitation for a young band hovering around the mid 20 range is hard to resist. Why tinker with proven formulas? Editors have broken down Joy Division's music to it's barest roots, and providing fast high-hat-destroying pulses with soundly guitars, it's a miracle their debut isn't at first mistaken for another Joy Division compilation. While upon further listening, some dissimilarities separate Editors' debut
The Back Room from it's comparison partners, their depression-mongering effort contains more than a heavy amount of borrowed ideals from it's godfathers, and it falls flat with too much unoriginality and a severe case of schizophrenia.
At first, the concept of
The Back Room and the overall sound of Editors seems well enough. Continue the underground craze of baritone singing with psychotic lyrics and accompany it with pulsating beats and sonic guitars in order to make it big as the Interpol from across the pond. Unlike their American counterpart though, lyrics are uninspired and the heartbeat rhythms out-beat their lifespan, thus the fast pace quickly grows exhausting by the time the halfway point of the album is reached. Lead singer Tom Smith tries his best to call forth the ghosts of Ian Curtis, but his baritone comes out sounding more Brandon Flowers than the godfather of depression. As Curtis had a knack for throwing a frightening one liner into his songs (can you think of a time more sonically creepy than when you heard Curtis sigh "Where have they been?"), Smith comes through sounding boring and generic with lines such as "Oh, if fortune favors the brave, I am as poor poor as they come". Granted, his aggression can come through on brief occasions, such as on
Munich where he snarls "You'll speak when you're spoken to" under a sixteenth note drive by percussionist Ed Lay, but more often then not, Smith's outward push comes through as a normal, albeit angry British chap's thoughts. His incessant cry of "As the sun goes down on a broken town and the fingers bleed in the factories of the ones you love and you keep with me" in
Fingers in the Factories seems to lack the direction and potency he strives for. Unfortunately for Editors, Smith's untapped lyrical potential plagues much of the album and makes their debut far less interesting than their counterparts.
While the obvious rip-offs of the aforementioned acts detract from
The Back Room's listen, the album itself carries tight musicianship and some fierce dwellings in dark. Under Lay's pounding (although oftentimes tiring) rhythms,
The Back Room jumps into a furious pace and rarely relinquishes it for eery ballads. As Lay and bassist Russ Leetch provide the heartbeat to much of
The Back Room's meat, guitarist Chris Urbanowicz plays with one string riffs and chord progressions reminiscent of pre-weird Strokes in order to capture that blend of old school post punk and the modern indie hip rock of the day. In addition to playing with the classic rock setup, Editors borrow yet another page from Joy Division and laden
The Back Room with sexy synths in order to get the elctronic feel made popular by pioneer goth rockers The Cure. This instrumental imitation, while attempting to show that Editors can look backwards while paving the way forwards, instead sounds as though they're an 80's alt/indie tribute band. It's that similar. To their credit, they don't steal from these rock legends badly, quite the contrary in fact. They execute the sound they go for very well. Smith's pleasingly clean monotone gives the album a very slick feel, sliding from one ear to the other with high amounts of production. As Smith croons "If we run, they'll look in the back room" and "You fall from grace. We fall from such grace," over Leetch's call to attention bass line on
Camera, you get a rare glimpse of how much better Editors could be with psychotically good words. Smith's gift of finding melody isn't in question, as his sighs range from bass rumbles to incessant cries. His voice in fact sounds awfully like the Brisith Paul Banks or Morrissey. Scared of baritones? Smith won't appeal to you.
As a reader, I wouldn't be shocked if you were saying to yourself "Editors don't look good to me." In addition to proving your horrific grammar, you would be saying only a semi-valid statement. Rarely, some heartwrenching moments show up, especially during the second half of the album. As Smith sings "You don't need this disease" seemingly from space on the nearly britpop
Bullets, one nearly gets the annoying feeling you get when you listen to Coldplay. It's horrible, bland brit rock, but goddammit, I enjoy it. Yikes. Ironically,
Bullets comes through as being one of the more mellow tracks on the album, despite it's sonic U2 sound. And with the Editors, and with most post-punk bands for that matter, their best work comes when they mellow out and glide through the atmosphere between heaven and hell. Smith's funeral sobs/breaths that serve as the chorus to
Distance stand well up to any competitor, and again, a rare glimpse of awe-inspiring Editors shows up to prove the average hipster-scoffer wrong. If only
The Back Room kept this trend alive for it's eleven tracks and throw in only a couple barn-burners. But rarely can any music act provide what the public really wants. Because of this,
The Back Room keeps falling flat in a whirlwind of too much dance and not enough dark. It's not inconceivable one could fall asleep as Smith continuously and repetetively hums "I wanted to see, I wanted to see, I wanted to see this for myself" a grand total of seven times during the trudging
Fall. Granted, Leetch's 7th jumping bass makes attempts to add some interest, but the song ends up easily forgotten. As
The Back Room is.
Final question: Are Editors worth getting into and is
The Back Room anything worth spending 10 dollars (at your local Best Buy) on? Well, for the fans of the countless names dropped in the review, from old school to new school alike, Editors are a worthy addition if you want something fresh from those bands. For the casual post-punk doom and gloom dance listener, chances are
The Back Room would probably end up one of those records in your collection collecting dust. The Editors' sound is that of an 80's alt indie band, and their sonic floods and aggressive percussion parts make
The Back Room occasionally fun to listen to. Unfortunately, Tom Smith's lyrical ineptidude, no matter how good his melodies are, make the insanity-dwelling sound
The Back Room goes for just sound like a slightly mentally unstable average British being. And for a band like Editors, average is where they will always end up unless they remedy the flat poems and mellow out into some softer tracks. As for
The Back Room, it's nothing miraculously orgasmic. But it'll surely take some of the pain away until Interpol's next record comes out.
Recommended Tracks
Munich
Camera
Bullets
Distance
