Editors

A band I feel it's time I endorsed is Editors. Before my cohorts remind me that they're rather mainstream for my tastes, let me assure you that I don't care. Editors have had a fair amount of success early in their career with two platinum selling albums and a Mercury Nomination for their debut, The Back Room, in 2006, so there is only one direction for them to go in, which is down. That's certainly a good thing for us music aficionados. The further Radiohead plummeted into the depths of obscurity in 1999, for example, is, arguably, when musical mastery flourished. Tom Smith, their effortlessly beautiful frontman, like a thinking man's Orlando Bloom, has a voice comparable to Ian Curtis; it's mature beyond his years, and there's a sense of depth and intelligence to his lyrics that lift the music above the popular. Fortunately, Smith has passed the boundary of the death-laden second album without committing suicide, as was Curtis' fate, and they haven't released an album for almost two years now, and another still looks a ways on the horizon. These guys are superb musicians. Chris Urbanowicz, their lead guitarists has the makings of something special, and I'm led to believe by the progression we saw from the first album to the second, An End Has A Start, that there's a lot of potential here, especially given their age. I have not seen such powerful live performances with such energy and passion for a long time. I think if I'd strolled in to watch them at Glastonbury in 2007 and seen the performance posted below it would have blown my mind. Smith has even developed a signature dance, a sort of an upper-bodily contortion, in the same vein as Curtis or our close friend, Mr Thom Yorke. See, for a sample of what I'm talking about, this: