Editors have navigated a path to longevity that covers the bases: creative shifts, changes of line-up and not getting attached to the trappings of fame. However in the end, for all the drama in their music, this is a band that has survived through pragmatism, friendship and staying grounded. It’s been a Karma Climb of sorts, you might say.
The egoless band can go a lot further than most bands. A strong element of that is embracing creative changes of direction - agreeing on it and being brave about it. Let’s face it, something we know about longevity is that taking creative risks is not an option - at some stage every band must do it. As fans, we all have a favourite Bowie album and a least favourite one. The same goes for every band, and that includes English indie-rockers Editors.
Impressive then, that Editors have forged a new creative direction not once, but twice. The latest incarnation is hardly as an indie-rock band at all, but as an electronic outfit that has dived wholly into the musical scene that is electronic body music - so much so, they even named their new album (#7), EBM.
It stands also for Editors Blanck Mass, splicing together Editors the ‘rock band’ with new band member Benjamin John Power, aka the electronic artist Blanck Mass. It makes this new formation a sextet, but it makes Editors’ sound infinitely larger.
Electronic body music was a new one for me, and on going down a wormhole, I found an excellent ‘definition’ by the music writer / DJ Andi Harriman:
“At its best, EBM feels like the heat from the furnace, causing blistered hands and battered feet, the rippling of muscles and dripping of sweat. It is about movement, about work—about, well, the body”.
Less a genre and more a philosophy, this certainly makes good copy for the new Editors record. Indeed, keyboard player and backing vocalist Elliott Williams even suggested it could have been on the album’s cover sleeve.
They’ve pulled it off with aplomb, with an album that has a motor on it, and absolutely no filler. And when you think about it, the move - as radical as it seems - is more an organic evolution of where the band has been going since 2010’s In This Light And On This Evening. But then, Editors’ career has been an ongoing exercise in managing expectations. As frontman Tom Smith puts it.
“Papillon (single, 2010) marked the time UK radio stopped playing us but in Belgium, Holland and Germany it was a smash - and paved the way to the rest of our career.”
Embracing line-up changes as a new creative beginning is one of our revealed secrets of longevity. An end has a start, so to speak. It has enabled Editors to assimilate new members into the band in a way that stands out as genuinely progressive, mature - perhaps even democratic. Not only that, but they’ve figured out the key to a democratic band: no arseholes.
Tom:
“Bands with arseholes are gonna find it hard to achieve longevity. Sometimes amazing things can happen when you have a dominant personality but you are not gonna get to make albums for 20 years that way.”
Editors have navigated a path to longevity that covers the bases: creative shifts, changes of line-up and not getting attached to the trappings of fame. However in the end, for all the drama in their music, this is a band that has survived through pragmatism, friendship and staying grounded. It’s been a Karma Climb of sorts and long may they go on.
EBM is out now and Editors tour the UK late January 2023. Details here.