Editors In This Light And On This Evening (Kitchenware / Sony)
2/5
By: Stephen Maughan
In This Light And On This Evening... is the third release from the Birmingham-based Editors since they shook up the indie rock world with the Mercury Prize nominated The Back Room in 2005, so it's a wonder why a band who made such a promising start only 4 years ago seem to have so completely lost their direction.
It starts promisingly enough with the opening track, as Tom Smith hums of “in this light and on this evening, London has become the most beautiful thing I’ve seen” again and again against a backdrop of solemn noise and some quite crafty guitar playing that hint of a band far greater than the Brit awards and daytime radio anthems they've become accustomed to.
Still, after a good start things very soon start to dry up, and boredom quickly settles in. It's almost as if Editors want to prove they can be gloomy, arty and popular with radio DJ's and corporate high flyers. Hey, it worked for bands like Kraftwerk, Simple Minds, and Radiohead.
Actually, this is more like a strange mixture of Kraftwerk and Simple Minds than the experimental angle of Radiohead. For the most part the guitars have been toned down and replaced by high energy synths and a booming disco sound you could almost – almost – imagine Andy Warhol getting down to at Studio 54.
For there's something dated here, despite their best intentions to reinvent themselves. It's nine songs that, although far from terrible, unfortunately aren’t particularly memorable. The songs tend to all blend together and soon, one begins to feel a bit sick of that same old synthesiser that doesn't draw you in, merely make you nostalgic for the Editors of old where Smith's vocals weren't bombarded with electrics.
I have little else to say about this rather poor album, except perhaps that Editors have become a little too comfortable with their success, for there is no hunger or spark here, and their best music always seems to have arisen from some form of desperation. Editors have recorded two great records this decade. They didn't make the hat-trick, but I'm hopeful the relative failure of this In This Light... will prompt the band to get their collective arse in gear and make another great album, for this simply is not good enough.
Artists in this article: Editors
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