Forget the celebrity DJ girlfriends and miserable faces (something of an contradictory scenario anyway, surely?): Birmingham four-piece Editors seem to be one of those bands whose name alone attracts derision before a single note of their music has been heard.
Which is a tad unfair really, as despite the ridiculously over-emphasised Interpol comparisons – yes, both bands are influenced by a combination of English post-punk and early REM, so what? – Editors stand out from the rest of the crowd as distinctively as an Aberdeen Angus in a swimming pool. Who, exactly, they’re supposed to be copying is as big a mystery now as it ever was.
After the unexpected success of 2005’s debut long-player The Back Room, Editors were expected to go one of two ways: either a career mapped out with sound-alike records a la U2, or down the Coldplay / Snow Patrol route of big ballads, Virgin FM playlisting and arena (or bigger) tours. The fact that An End Has A Start doesn't really set its stall out in either camp suggests that the band is either unfocused, or more likely unperturbed by expectation. Their only goal is to create a record at least on a par with its predecessor.
That won’t stop the Snow Patrol comparisons, though, particularly as Editors roped in Jacknife Lee to produce this second album; additionally, lead single 'Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors' does have a feeling of emptiness and despair about it similar to the aforementioned act’s ‘Chasing Cars’, despite its infinite superiority due to vocalist Tom Smith’s eerie pronunciations and Chris Urbanowicz’s now signatory guitar sound. What may surprise people, however, is that ‘Smokers...’ is by no means the standout track, and nor is it the most obvious choice for a single on this record.
At the same time, it is easy to see why the song was chosen: it presents the band in a whole new light. The title track, with its echoed chorus of “You came on your own, that's how you will leave”, and the unintentionally upbeat ‘Bones’ could quite easily have been thrust into the limelight weeks ago to give An End... a safe path into consumerland, such are the similarities with both ‘Munich’ and ‘Blood’ respectively.
That, of course, would have led to cries of “Same old, same old”, and Editors really don't need to tread that path. Sure, the reference points are there for all to hear, but I bet no one expected the most glaringly obvious of those to be The Jesus And Mary Chain? Straight up.
If the bassline for ‘Smokers...’ didn't emerge from late night sessions listening to Darklands, then I'm an Irishman (and he’s really not, you know – Ed). Elsewhere, ‘The Weight Of The World’ is cascaded into another time and place courtesy of its Spector-esque drum sound, previously heard on J&MC’s ‘Just Like Honey’.
What does run through the album, however, is the feeling that frontman Smith can’t have been going through the happiest of times while writing An End Has A Start. This impression is epitomised quite awkwardly on the grandiose ‘Put Your Head Towards The Air’, where he asks: “If I lay face down on the ground, would you walk all over me?”. The accompanying tune begins perfectly maudlin (think Deserter's Songs-era Mercury Rev or today’s Low) before erupting into a treble bar wall of sound that Sigur Rós would once have been proud of. Likewise, the closing piano-led ‘Well Worn Hand’, which deals with the suicide of a close friend, finds Smith actually sounding ready to burst into a flood of tears.
What you won’t find here, then, is the clutch of singles to keep the radio-friendly fans happy. Instead, An End Has A Start actually sounds like it was crafted as ten quite individual chapters of a long-running saga; surprisingly, though, it ultimately works better than its predecessor as a cohesive, flowing album. Inadvertently, arenas may beckon, but don't expect those who’ve solely embraced The Hits to date to fully understand the underlying beauty of Editors just yet.
Great review
It's a tremendous album. Their debut was fine, but they have really taken a great leap forward with this new album. The title track is the best song I have heard for a long time, and The Weight Of The World has me in tears every time I hear it.
why on earth does
it have you in tears?
This is very good review Dom. Nice one.
Editors always cop a fierce rap. Having had it for a couple of months (and actually being a fan) I was dissapointed at first. Is it just me or is this album morbid as hell? Drab rain-soaked Coldplay with a touch of darkness I thought. Music can obviously be depressing but ultimately uplifting (The National, etc) and can be some of the best around, but some of this is bland-type depressing. The last track makes me want to top myself. Some of the lyrics on the later, more pedestrian, tracks are quite crige-worthy and the album is relatively (as someone said) front loaded.
BUT - the 3/4 good tracks on here are really great. I think the irony that he displays in the lyric "The saddest thing i've ever seen, was smokers outside the hospital doors" is actually quite inspired. It makes you think. As for the, not so instantly, great tracks - a few of them are slowly growing on me.
Listening to 6Music this morning, Tom had said that he didn't neccessarily expect people to like it straight away - it is a grower. Whilst the people who are into 'The Hits' won't appreciate this, and whilst I don't think I'll savour it in the same way I do 'The Back Room', I'd say don't be too quick to write it off...
Good review Dom
Looking forward to getting this album.
way to review, Dom
I think I love this record. Although I loved The Back Room intensely for a month or two and now can't bear to listen to big chunks of it. However this is something rather different, beautiful, I love it. I expect to lve it much longer than the previous one.
Also, Mr Smith's hair is doing Chris Martin's hair-timeline in reverse.
Awesome stuff Dom
I'm glad you were the one to review this terrific album. But no mention of the albums two best songs? 'When Anger Shows' and 'The Racing Rats' really showcase why this band is so special.
"Who, exactly, they’re supposed to be copying is as big a mystery now as it ever was."
early U2?
cant wait
for this album. was initially disapointed with 'Smokers..' The sound was too Jacknife Lee BIG noise. But that songs grown on me. I also loved the title track as soon as i heard it.
Should be a good album.
And i'm glad they've beaten the 2nd album syndrome that is hitting /is gonna hit so many of these NME bands.
I can't make my mind up about this
The lyrics are generally very pedestrian (except for the unexpected chorus of Racing Rats) and it feels frontloaded, since the title track and Bones are clearly the best tracks. At the same time I think it may grow on me, I think the problem with The Back Room was that it was too immediate and got old fast. I just hope this stands up to repeated listens.
This is a brave move
I had one listen and it seems really mature, 'smokers' annoyed me to start with but i think i was too quick to judge based on the past.
"Their only goal is to create a record at least on a par with its predecessor"
Er, well done?
Very over rated
I've read much about the Editors and finally got a chance to see them on Jools Holland. I've got to say I was very disappointed and wont be looking to buy the album
All the lyrics quoted in this review
Are typical of the kind of shite I'd expect from the Editors. They really are shit BUT...I thought this was quite a well written review. Hmmmm...
...
The single sounds like Embrace. The album would have to do a lot of work to make up for that atrocity in my book
False?
Despite casually liking this album does no one think it tries to be too clever and profound and really ends up sounding quite silly and forced? For instance "the saddest thing i ever seen was smokers outside the hospital doors" or whatever
I don't really think much of it
I think it sounds like they're trying way too hard to be what they want to be, one of the biggest bands in the world. This record will make them huge globally, but it could also lose a lot of original fans.
ps.
I'd give it a 6/7 out of 10 after my 10th listen or so.
A very well written review too.
boring music made by boring people for other boring people
this band checks so many of my "everything i hate about modern music" boxes its unbelievable. faux-profound but ultimately completely meaningless navel-gazing high-school solipsism trying to pass itself off as social commentary, check. droning faux-u2 8th note downstroke guitars, check. lazy writing and musicianship excused by focus on vague notions of "atmosphere", check. faux-anthemic loud-quiet dynamics less subtle in their attempts at tearjerking than fucking ghost, check. risible, meaningless attempts at repeated mantras, check. po-faced and humorless, check. emotionally vacuous, check. characterless, "this'll do" 4/4 drumming with about as much swing as a revolving door, check. painfully white, middle-class, and male, check. coldplay, check. snow patrol, check.
even the title is hilariously bad
sounds like a spoof title
actually they could very well be a spoof band now i think about it
i'm with you
ranting person.
Drab Is The New Mulch.
Dear lord!!!!
Thats about the long and the short of it. That's a much better review in my book. Well said!! Well fucking said! I've just seen them on the telly box a±t Glasto and they made my blood boil and thankfully you verbalised my frustrations and my blood returned to it's normal temperature of 37 degrees Celsius after reading your comment. Bloody 6 music has a lot to answer for as it includes these jokers along with many others in the same wet modern lethargy ridden genre as 'music that matter' Does it buggery!
Jesus fucking Christ how stupid people can be...
"painfully white, middle-class, and male, check."
... then go and listen to Sunn Ra or Fear of a Black fucking Planet you pretentious cunt.
You're probably one of those wankers with racialist (no, that's not a malapropism) double standards who has a higher regard - if not appreciation -for the sort of lamentable and woefully inarticulate American R'n'B/Rap that fills the dancefloors of run down nightclubs in provincial towns with fat girls and their Lambrinis, for all its glorification of womanising, homophobia, violence, criminality and inane beyond help the-shinier-and-more-gaudy-the-better materialism, than for Editors and their like... And for no other reason, even if you wouldn't admit it to yourself or anyone else (or maybe you would), than the fact that the hopeless illiterates responsible for it are predominately black, and to be too critical of people of THAT colour would obviously be hideously racist.
Boring music made by boring people for other boring people? All I can say to that is that I'd take boring music made by boring people for other boring people over stupid music made by thick people for other thick people every time.
You're perfectly entitled to not like Editors. Regrettably, there's nothing to stop to you being even more dismissive of them you because you object to their ethnicity, their class, or their gender either (even if you're white, middle-class and male yourself, which wouldn't surprise me at all). THAT, however, makes you a complete fucking pig.
In all seriousness, people like you probably do as much for the popularity of the BNP as 7/7 and the 2001 race riots did when you talk that kind of shit.
Question of race?
I don't think that ethnicity was the point of the above comment. It meant the classic, typical attitudes of white, middle-class, suburbanites who buy albums because 'Q Magazine gave it a 7'.
It's not about listening to Funkadelic you idiot, and it's not an actual racialist comment. It was a way of suggesting a typical attitude.
By the way, EVERYTHING he said about Editors was spot on.
Boring and forced.
Actually wait...
I just realised you brought the BNP and the race riots into this!
Are you a complete moron?
HE WAS ONLY USING IT AS A METAPHOR FOR A CONSERVATIVE 'SAFE' ATTITUDE!
It had absolutley NOTHING to do with actual ethnicity!
God, you're the ignorant one.
Plus, you admitted to liking boring music over stupid music?
Well, I'd much rather listen to The Ramones than fucking Editors.
And so on...
"I just realised you brought the BNP and the race riots into this!
Are you a complete moron?"
Unsurprisingly, I'm not going to concede that I'm a complete moron. I WILL concede that I probably made what something of a rhetorical exaggeration (I'll call it that for want of a better phrase) in suggesting that people who hold sentiments like those expressed by spookyelectric probably have a greater direct benefit for the popularity of the BNP than terror attacks or race riots.
However, I think I have a very good point, which is this: I took issue with spookyelectric's criticism of Editors for being "painfully white, middle-class and male." The reason I took issue with it is that I think it's totally inappropriate to criticise a band or an individual on those grounds. But I see "white", "middle class" and "male" all being used, in various combinations or on their own in perjoratively. It aggravates the piss out of me, and it generally smacks of very tiresome racialist, classist (that might not be a word but I'm sure you know what I mean by it) self-loathing. Call me presumptuous, but I see it as a widespread, if not all pervasive (I'm an exception for one, and although I may appear to be contradicting that saying what I'm about to, I hope you'll see that I'm not) white, middle-class scourge probably as much as or more than spookyelectric (and maybe you) see Editors and their like in the same way, and I think it's borne out of some kind of unwarranted guilt all tied up (whether those afflicted by it realise it or not) with the hangover from European imperialism, the slave trade, racist hostility towards immigrant groups et.c et.c. I realise I'm again straying a long way from a comment about a simple criticism of a moderately popular guitar band, and many people would disagree partially or even totally with what I'm saying, but again, I think I've got a good point. Now I'm a pretty liberal-minded individual. If I see that kind of thing as unwarranted and racialist self-loathing bullshit and take issue with it, there are likely to be much less liberal-minded people who find it downright alienating. Do you see what I'm saying?
"HE WAS ONLY USING IT AS A METAPHOR FOR A CONSERVATIVE 'SAFE' ATTITUDE!"
See the third and fourth paragraphs of my initial reply.
Since you've now described the kind of attitude you think spookyelectric is using "white, middle-class and male" as a "metaphor" for, I'll be a bit more specific and ask whether you think it would be equally acceptable to use "black, lower-class and male" as a "metaphor" for misogynistic, homophobic, shallow, materialistic and violent attitudes, since such attitudes have been and are espoused by (some) rap/hip-hop artists, many or most of whom happen to be black and from working or lower-class backgrounds?
Again, I ask you to either agree that it isn't any more acceptable to use 'white' and 'middle-class' perjoratively than it would be to use 'black' or 'lower-class'/'working-class' perjoratively, or explain to me exactly why it is. Good luck if you choose the latter.
"Plus, you admitted to liking boring music over stupid music?"
God give me strength...
I was referring to what spookyelectric deemed boring music (i.e. Editors) and (some of) what I deem 'stupid music' for rhetorical purposes.
I, for the most part, DON'T find Editors boring (about half of the new album being an exception up to some point, for what little that may be worth), and on the whole I like their music. Maybe that DIDN'T go without saying, since I took issue not with a criticism of the band's music but their ethnicity, social class and gender, but I assumed that it'd go without saying that no one particularly likes music that THEY find boring OR stupid (unless it's stupid in the Weird Al Yankovic sense or whatever). The fact that it didn't go without saying makes me think that you're the idiot, frankly.
Maybe more of a question of double standards, you tell me...
"It's not about listening to Funkadelic you idiot, and it's not an actual racialist comment. It was a way of suggesting a typical attitude."
Okay.
Can I assume, then, that if you'll defend a band/album being criticised for being "painfully white, middle-class, and male" on the grounds that it's just a "way of suggesting a typical attitude" you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with a criticism of say, a 50 Cent release describing it/him as "painfully black, lower class and male" because to do so is just a "way of suggesting a typical attitude"?
As far as I am concerned, to say that would be neither relevant nor acceptable. I'll demonstrate a bit of good faith and assume that you'd have the sense to agree with that. What I ask is, why should it be any more acceptable where bands made of white, middle-class men are concerned?
Either agree that it isn't any more acceptable, or explain to me exactly why it is. Good luck if you choose the latter.
we, boring people loving this album
and you probably mixing apples and oranges.
*yawn*
Boring boring boring.
It'll be massive.
And worst album title of the year?
<3
I love their new single and can't wait for the album. I've been a fan ever since I saw them live in 2005 and they defo havn't lost me as a huge fan. I just think they keep getting better.
Boredom
''Which is a tad unfair really, as despite the ridiculously over-emphasised Interpol comparisons – yes, both bands are influenced by a combination of English post-punk and early REM, so what? – Editors stand out from the rest of the crowd as distinctively as an Aberdeen Angus in a swimming pool. Who, exactly, they’re supposed to be copying is as big a mystery now as it ever was.''
Er, Interpol? I think the Joy Division Comparison's are mostly down to the vocal stylings both bands employ rather than the music. The first album was mediocre. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't that interesting a couple of a singles aside. I imagine the new one's exactly the same. All music is boring nowadays!
Tom Smith's voice
doesn't match his face at all.
and most importantly
what the hell is going on with his hair!?
His hair is a complete disaster...
...and he compounds the disaster by drawing attention to it all the time. I think they are pretty crap, tbh, all overwrought earnestness and they seem to take themselves waaayyy too seriously. But they have that superstar Bowman-Smith batting for them (Guess which band she picked out as her highlight of Glastonbury? Correctamundo!) so they get what they deserve IMO.
i hate
this band. they make me want to vomit.
Hear ye
hear ye
...
This is an amazing album, so much better than most sophomore efforts this year ("Favorite Worst Nightmare", spoof title?)
bland
This album has a couple nice tracks but overall it's bland, sappy, bombastic and boring. I'd give the Editors debut album, The Back Room a solid 8 stars. This album gets a generous 6 or 7 stars.