Editors - The Back Room

The debut album from Editors, The Back Room confirms this young Birmingham quartet as torch-bearers for a British rock legacy that harks back, via short sojourns through the back catalogues of The Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen, to Joy Division's peerless Unknown Pleasures. Combining the self-consciously grand, melodramatic vocals of frontman Tom Smith with swirling, minor-key guitar dynamics and claustrophobic, propulsive percussion, this could just be the British riposte to Interpol's majestic Turn On The Bright Lights. Mostly, this is down to Smith’s skill for twinning a superficially catchy chorus with enigmatic, dark sentiments: "People are fragile things, you should know by now/Be careful what you put them though", he warns on the tense "Munich". Perhaps in an understanding that you need more than mystique to power a debut album, however, the rather more mellow "Camera" sees Editors spread their wings a little, inviting cascading synths and the distant trill of sustained, effects-drenched guitar into the desolate rock design. Later albums will hopefully see Editors further build on their coldly ambitious sound, but for now, The Back Room should satisfy those in search of a bit of the dark stuff. --Louis Pattison