Staffordshire Uni band Editors launch new album at Brum gig
It’s entirely fitting that Editors have chosen Birmingham Town Hall as the launch venue for their latest album, Violence. After all, Birmingham become their adopted home after band members met while studying Music Technology at Staffordshire University.
Back then, the band members lived in Birmingham and played at venues like the Jug of Ale and the Flapper & Firkin.
And frontman Tom Smith has commented on the importance of the city to the band. “Birmingham is very important. Looking back further it was where we all lived together in the early years, played all those Flapper and Jug of Ale shows, and then got our record deal. We’ve always said although only one of us was brought up there, Birmingham was the band’s home.”
Violence will feature in an exclusive and intimate launch show and fans can look forward to hearing it first on March 9.
The album opens with a dizzyingly bright, yet barbed opening salvo, Magazine, which marks an intriguing stylistic shift for Editors.
The single, the band’s first in three years, is an anthemic pop song that savagely attacks the empty gestures and posturing of those in power. Built around a rousing chorus, swelling keys and crunching, industrial chords, Magazine is a muscular, dynamic call-to-arms.
Sure to whet the appetite for Violence and strike an emotional chord with their legions of fans, Magazine demonstrates an ambition from Editors that their latest work is destined for the biggest stages this summer.
Tom adds: “Magazine is a pointed finger aimed at those in power . . . some corrupt politician or businessman . . . a character, and a tongue in cheek poke at the empty posturing and playing to the masses of the power hungry.” Violence is the sixth album from Editors, and follows 2015’s acclaimed top five In Dream. It was produced by Leo Abrahams (Wild Beasts, Florence & The Machine, Frightened Rabbit) and Editors with additional production from Benjamin John Power (Blanck Mass, F- Buttons) and mixed by Cenzo Townshend, except Hallelujah, which was mixed by Depeche Mode collaborator Alan Moulder.
Tom adds: “We had a lot of help from a guy called Blanck Mass, who makes very brutal electronic music. So when it’s electronic, it’s very electronic. But then when it’s guitar-y, it’s very band driven. I think we’ve managed to find the balance of those two things better than we have done before. Over the years, we’ve gone from backwards between more band-orientated sounding records and more electronic records. I think there’s a balance here between melody and brutality.”
