Editors say on their website that they don’t consider themselves a rock band, yet their soaring guitar effects, chunky atmospheric rock rhythms, and galvanizing vocal chimes indicate otherwise.  Their songs, the band says, create dramas without resolutions, and still their songs have a vibe that streaks with an uplifting quality intensifying the beating textures.

Band members Tom Smith (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Chris Urbanowicz (lead guitar), Russell Leetch (bass guitar), and Ed Lay (drums), came together while studying music technology at Stafford University in England.  Shortly thereafter, the newly formed Editors began composing songs while living in Birmingham, England, the home of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory and the South Yorkshire burgh known for fostering recording artists like Ozzy Osborne, Judas Priest, and Duran Duran.

By early 2005, Editors had compiled enough songs for a full length album, their debut disc The Back Room which was initially released in the UK before hitting the airwaves of Western Europe and one year later it has surfaced on the shores of the States.  The album showcases racy chord progressions, multiple layers of stellar guitar tones, flouncey drum knolls and bass lines branded into the sonic fibers.  The compositions have a studded sequencing reminiscent of The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Doves, and the 80’s icon Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

The album opens with awakening numbers like the atmospheric mid-tempos of “Lights,” “Munich,” and “Blood,” which demonstrate Editors prolific use of energetic vibrations, funky-esoteric beats, and magnetic vocal lolls that penetrate the listener's senses with a hypnotic feel.  Editors also submerge themselves into softer tempos like in their songs “Fall,” “Camera,” “Bullets,” and “Open Your Arms.”  These songs display melodic transitions that flow tranquilly with sprigs of dynamic guitar solos through the bridges or a shift in the drum stratum that injects a spree of impulses into the curvature of the momentum.

Editors crank up the tunage on tracks like “All Sparks,” “Distance,” and “Fingers In The Factories” with resounding shivers, gyrating textures, and shooting bursts of rattles that entice the rhythmic composures.  The rigorous, repetitive, harping chord patterns of “Fingers In The Factories” has a drilling, whining treatment adhered to a rousing lyrical phrasing which tells: 

As the sun goes down on a broken town/ and the fingers bleed in the factories/ come on out tonight, come out and see the sight/ of the ones you love and the ones you love/ and you/ keep with me, keep with me, keep with me, keep with/ smile for once, for a moment/ it makes us happy/ what we need is here

Similarly to Duran Duran, Editors have discovered an escape from England's industrial lifestyle and found a nether-world of sonic dreamscapes, which have been sweeping across England like a political scandal through Parliament.  Editors enchanted the British at the Glastonbury music festival in the summer of 2005 and have been performing live for BBC’s Radio One, Lamacq Live, and the UK’s XFM Radio, as well as playing for live webcasts at AOL and Napster.  Their music videos have appeared on MTV2 alongside The Darkness and they are scheduled to perform at 2006’s Lollapalooza Festival, in addition to playing a number of European music festivals this summer.

Their dreamscapes are far from being over, one year after their debut album’s release.

Links:

Listen to the full CD!
Official website