Quantcast

Call for Feature Essays About Any Aspect of Popular Culture, Present or Past

Music

Editors try to keep the momentum up here, by repackaging a few B-sides and a track off the two-disc British limited edition version of their debut into an EP of Rarities (though the concept may sit a little oddly considering the band’s only been around for one album, a product of tracks leaked on blogs here and there). The disc’s a for-fans-only affair, offering little in the way of creative insight or undiscovered gems. “Heads In Bags” has the Editors’ trademark guitar-jangle, upbeat drum accompaniment, but it’s a kind of paint-by-numbers song, relying on the atmosphere and timbre of Tom Smith’s voice and the driving rhythms of the guitars and drums rather than any innately interesting melodic or harmonic tropes. It’s consistent across four of the five tracks: “You Are Fading” turns U2 arpeggios into Editors thick-textured sound but misses that group’s soaring triumph; “Colours” misses the point on its chorus, a repetition of melodic fragment that seems only half-formed. But the obligatory remix of the hit single—here it’s the cicada remix of “Munich”—is actually quite successful, turning the surging original into a deep house crowd-pleaser, slow-enunciated vocals overlying a hyperactive synth riff. It’s a minor uptick though: if this is a sign of things to come, get ready for the sophomore slump.

Rating:

Dan Raper has been writing about music for PopMatters since 2005. Prior to that he did the same thing for his college newspaper and for his school newspaper before that. Of course he also writes fiction, though his only published work is entitled "Gamma-secretase exists on the plasma membrane as an intact complex that accepts substrates and effects intramembrane cleavage". He is currently studying medicine at the University of Sydney, Australia.


Tagged as: editors
Related Articles
Comments
Now on PopMatters
A Painting Come to Life: 'The Mill & the Cross' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 4:00 pm]
A Far Too Safe... and Strained... 'House' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 9:00 am]
'Safe House' Is Ersatz Edgy (Reviews) [Fri, 8:06 am]
The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 7:50 am]
  1. 'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness' (Columns)
  2. The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
  3. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 1: From 13Ghosts to Friendly Fires (Features)
  4. The Best Games of 2011 (Features)
  5. Not-So-Central Casting: Kevin Smith and the Birth of the Reality Podcast (Features)
  6. The 10 Greatest Movie Spies Ever (Short Ends and Leader)
  7. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 2: From the Go! Team to the Phoenix Foundation (Features)
  8. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 3: From Real Estate to Youth Lagoon (Features)
  9. Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Reviews)
  10. The Top 15 Madonna Singles of All Time (Sound Affects)
  11. Get Off of My Cloud!: 'Collecting' Music in the Digital Age (Features)
  12. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Reviews)
  13. Google and the Production of Curiosity (Marginal Utility)
  14. Carole E. Barrowman’s Authorial Journey to Hollow Earth (Features)
  15. Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt (Columns)
  16. “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
  17. Black Bananas: Rad Times Xpress IV (Reviews)
  18. The Gay Ole Countryside (Columns)
  19. Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (Reviews)
  20. Paul McCartney: Kisses on the Bottom (Reviews)
  21. Counterbalance No. 67: John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme' (Sound Affects)
  22. The 10 Best John Coltrane Solos (Sound Affects)
  23. A Look to the Past, An Insight Into the Present: The Use of Gender in 'Mad Men' (Features)
  24. A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football (Columns)
  25. Chairlift: Something (Reviews)
  26. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - "Heart Attack" (Cosmic Kids Remix) (PopMatters Premiere) (Mixed Media)
  27. Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral (Reviews)
  28. The Barbaric (and Poetic) Yawp of Shelby Lynne (Notes from the Road)
  29. After Cease to Exist: The Far-from-Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (Features)
  30. Mitt Romney Can Reside at Today's Proverbial 'Downton Abbey'... Newt Gingrich Cannot (Features)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.