New sound but Editors are still as good as ever
NEARLY a week after having to cancel a show in Aberdeen because of a bad cold, Editors frontman Tom Smith is showing no ill effects and is in top voice at their sell out Apollo show.
Embarking on their first full tour for three years, the Birmingham band are promoting their sixth album, Violence, and draw heavily on it within the setlist.
Though as Smith and co rattle through their 90 minute show, the old favourites are still the crowd-pleasers.
Releasing their brilliant post-punk debut The Back Room in 2005, the band were often compared to the likes of Scouse legends Echo and the Bunnymen, US rockers Interpol as well as our own Joy Division.
2007’s An End Has A Start carried on a similar trajectory, until 2009’s In This Light And On This Evening marked a new electronic sound, most notably with the excellent single Papillon.
Original guitarist Chris Urbanowicz left the band following the release of fourth album The Weight Of Your Love following musical differences, and this solidified the change in sound.
Two more albums have followed, and now it feels as though the five-strong live band have nailed their new sound, combining the electronica debuted on the third record with the post-punk which originally grabbed our attention.
Album track The Boxer opens the proceedings, swiftly followed by the single Sugar. Early classics All Sparks and Bullets punctuate the airing of songs culled from the new record, with Ocean of Night proving to be a mid-set highlight.
The biggest response of the evening comes with Papillon, that great single referencing the also great Steve McQueen film of the same name.
Smith’s idiosyncratic dancing is part of the spectacle, while the spectacular light show also adds to it.
The Racing Rats and Munich are rapturously received in the encore and Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors is good enough to close any gig.
It’s to the band’s credit that they have survived and stood the test of time, whereas so many of their peers of the mid 2000s scene failed.
Not many bands decide to experiment and change the sound which made them what they are.
But the new album is helping Editors find new fans and retain those who have been there right from the start.