Editors: In This Light And On This Evening

ALBUM REVIEW: Editors – In This Light And On This Evening
Words: Gareth O’Malley

Editors’ second album, ‘An End Has A Start’ was released on June 25th, 2007. Barely two weeks had passed when the band debuted a new song, ‘Banging Heads’. It seemed to show them moving in a more cinematic, heavier direction, but was rather disappointingly toned down (more than a little) when it made its appearance as a b-side to ‘The Racing Rats’ in November of that year.

You could see clearly, however, that Editors were itching to try new things, and more new material surfaced last summer when they premiered ‘No Sound But The Wind’, a song that was another step away from their earlier work. It is finally going to see the light of day on the rather brilliant-looking Twilight: New Moon soundtrack, released on October 19th.

As other new tracks were premiered earlier this year, and the tracklist etc. was revealed, speculation about the album grew. Would this be a complete reinvention, or simply a slight shift in sound?

Having spent quite some time with this record since it premiered on we7.com on Monday, I can say with certainty that it is the former. ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ is still Editors, alright, but Editors as we have never heard them before… and it is spectacular.

The ominous-sounding title track opens proceedings in a far better way than ‘Lights’ (from 2005’s ‘The Back Room’) and ‘Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors’ did. It coasts along on synths and Tom Smith’s vocals (‘I swear to god, I heard the earth inhale / Moments before it spat its rain down on me’) before exploding into life. Ed Lay’s drums and Russell Leetch’s bass enter simultaneously, the latter’s riff the base of the wall of sound that is created over the remainder of the track. A blistering song that announces to the world: Yes, we’re back.

Next up is the longest Editors song to date. ‘Bricks and Mortar’ is an epic six-minute track, once again built upon Leetch’s bass. He is the man who holds the album together; there is a prominent bass line in nearly every track here (the atmospheric ‘Walk The Fleet Road’ is the exception). A racing verse gives way to the best chorus the album has to offer. ‘Pour salt water on the wound,’ Smith sings as the synths take the song into the stratosphere.

Storming lead single ‘Papillon’ is an excellent track. It cannot be faulted musically, yet something seems a little off about it being on the album. ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ is quite a dark record – listen to the chilling ‘The Big Exit’ and you’ll see what I mean – and this slice of New Order-esque synth-pop seems oddly out of place. Nevertheless, if it can be said that this album has an anthem on it, this is surely it.

Elsewhere, second single ‘Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool’ – its status as such all but confirmed by the performance on ‘Later… With Jools Holland’ on Sept 25th – is like a gothic Talking Heads covering some long-lost 80s pop song; the quirkiest song in the band’s oeuvre by quite some distance.

The album closes with ‘Walk The Fleet Road’, a song reminiscent of ‘Distance’ (off ‘The Back Room’). It is a truly beautiful track, featuring an excellent vocal from Smith (which includes an uncharacteristically high-pitched chorus), reminding us that when Editors go for the softer approach, it nearly always pays off (‘Push Your Head Towards The Air’, anyone?).

Bookended by two of the most powerful tracks the band have written, ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ is indeed a brave record, shockingly left-field for a band such as Editors. The change in sound has done wonders for them: Smith has proved himself to be quite a versatile singer; Lay has stripped his drumming back to simplistic yet astonishingly effective beats; Chris Urbanowicz, while his trademark tremolo guitar is pretty much absent here, has lent a new dimension to the band’s sound with his synths; and the album pretty much belongs to Leetch. The band’s most consistent record so far, it will split the fanbase down the middle – in fact, it seems to already have done so – but I’m sure that this was the intention from the start, and must applaud them for this. Well done.