Review: Editors

Review: Editors

Editors "The Back Room": Aidin Vaziri | They wore raincoats and hated life. That's it. That's what made all those early '80s bands so great -- not the mascara, not the shoes, not having kids from "The O.C." guest star in their music videos. Why is it that Editors seem to be the only ones to grasp this while peers like She Wants Revenge and the Killers are busy shopping for studded leather belts and "Vote for Pedro" T-shirts at Hot Topic? Written and recorded in gloomy old Birmingham while the four members suffered the indignities of real work (at a women's shoe store, no less), this album cuts straight to the essentials -- broken egos and broken hearts. Songs like "Munich" ("People are fragile things, you should know by now," sings Tom Smith) and "Camera" ("I just close my eyes as you walk out") don't so much revive the wide-screen guitar rock of Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division and U2 as rival the originals. Really. Yes, the lyrics can feel a little simplistic at times, but the feelings are all too real. When, on the opening track, "Lights," Smith intones, "I got a million things to say," it's not so much the words that matter but the urgency and hope that pushes through his naturally low, detached voice. You can't help but believe him. Likewise, you can feel the air sucked out of his lungs when he cuts through the stabbing rhythms and swirling despair of "Fingers in the Factories" to deliver the plea, "Keep with me, keep with me, keep with me." It's stunning stuff. On first impression, Editors might sound like every other band out there at the moment, but time will prove they were the only ones actually worth swooning over.