There’s been enough hype about bands coming from across the pond lately to make anyone wary of ascribed excellence. With The Back Room by the Editors, get set for the necessary next-big-thing buildup. Most of the requisite tools and instruments are present again for yet another post-punk revival, except with as confident and directed a debut as the Editors have constructed, this time you can almost buy into it. What’s evident from the start is that while they’re in no hurry to show off their best wares, they certainly don’t hold back from establishing a unifying tone and direction.
Frontman Tom Smith’s vocals are as smoky and propellant as the pounding and tight percussion suggests; both are certain to draw comparisons to the similarly atmospheric and dark Interpol. However, Smith and his compatriots dream up propulsively dynamic tunes to inhabit a back room full of tension, smoke, and killer hooks. On “Blood,” the singular drive of the drumming directs all attention to a storming declaration of hopeless disparity. The band also proves adept on “All Sparks” at being able to produce a record on which all members are heard, given proper time at the front, and mixed into a cascading wall of sound. Not all ventures in this manner are a success however, as proven on the largely superfluous “Bullets.” But even on slower numbers like “Fall” and “Distance,” where the band doesn’t shy away from studio wizardry, Smith’s winning twine is able to lift what’s meant to be a more mellow and subdued nature into a more pliable softness. In less sure hands songs as structured as these may come off sounding mundane and contrived, but Smith et al display such a confidence and willingness to work together that they can only spur on the image created by the expert craftsmanship of a sound designed to simultaneously break away and embrace the legacy that calls back to bands such as Echo and the Bunnymen and Joy Division. The chilling “Camera” has Smith warning “Don’t look in the back room/ where we hide all of our secrets.” Indeed to be let in on their secret would be to account for a freshman band’s skill and craft.
Listening to The Back Room, one gets the impression that this is what Bloc Party could have sounded like, had they learned how to write more than one song. |