Editors The Back Room. Release Date : March 21, 2006. Label: Kitchenware/Sony. Rating: Awesome with growth. (Screw points. To each his own!) I needed to take a step back from this band. I'm far more enamoured with the music after being removed from their live show for a while. I'm far more enamoured with the album after being removed from... well... the album for a while. You see, all I had to go on of this band was the extraordinary hype they'd generated. So I was expecting a genie in a lamp basically, complete fireworks when I saw them live. The only thing is, I saw them at Richards after watching a different band I dig, and being unfamiliar with the Editors, their set just didn't stick out to me. Good, for certain, and a few songs were completely marvelous, but overall the show left me going, what's the big deal? That night I arrived home to find the album, so I decided to toss it on for a whit to see if the live environment had anything to do with my non-impression. Apparently not. So away the album went for a while. But yesterday afternoon I found it again, and I put it on, and I realized, it is darn fun. It's like Interpol with emotion, it's filled to the brim with danceable modern instruments that no one's at a loss to find in many bands of this ilk these days, so it's competent and accessible. So I'm not about to herald them as the second coming of Christ or anything, but it fits the now impeccably, and really, you can't not groove around a bit to this. Certain things, like the opening of "Blood," are so by-the-book new-new-wave it's almost laughable. They do far better when they don't try too hard, but the melodies on this are stunning. High-energy sounds, a record built for the dance halls. The shivery guitar work in "Fall" is the part that snagged me at the live show, and it's no less goosebumping on the record. Delightful - the rest of the song is nearly too slow for my liking, but that guitar work is unreal. Vocally, The Editors are a little bit like Elbow - throaty and rich. "All Sparks" is another standout track for it's rolling beats. This would be a good treadmill song. I can imagine a guy robotically bopping around behind a keyboard in this one. So once more, not earth-shattering, but definitely a standout in the modern realm of hiprock. Song of choice : Hard to choose between "Fall" and "All Sparks" but I think for overall excellency, "All Sparks" takes it over that one haunting guitar pices repeated in "Fall" -Andy Scheffler Elsewhere Editors website Published : January, 2007.