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 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Paranoid post-punk, straight from a call centre. When Editors moved to Birmingham after finishing their course in Music Technology at university in Stafford, the quartet found out just how rubbish modern life could be. Half the band worked in a call centre - textbook seedbed of dissatisfaction and ennui – while the other half ended up in a shoe shop. Guitarist Chris Urbanowicz outlines their Birmingham state of mind: “We were getting praise the night before from A&R men, then there’s someone shouting at you for bringing the wrong shoes out.”Editors - Urbanowicz, singer Tom Smith, bassist Russell Leetch and drummer Ed Lay - might have left such size-10 horrors far behind with their first single, Bullets, but their debut album, The Back Room, still displays the tokens of city sickness. Rich in moody post-punk atmosphere and epic rock lyricism - Joy Division, Chameleons and U2 lurk in every dark corner - it’s a record that rivals Interpol for elegant gloom. “The city may have had an effect on the music we were making,” acknowledges Urbanowicz. “We weren’t 100 per cent pleased about where were we were when we were writing it: working our asses off doing two jobs at once and not sleeping much. It’s not the prettiest of places, grey and soulless, and when you put people in a room after a hard day’s work they’re going to be a little bit aggressive.”  Still, the band seem to relish the opportunity for urbanite despair and moody poetry. “The only real downside to recording the album was being in this tiny little village in Lincoln when we’re very much city boys,” says Urbanowicz. “It was weird being sheltered away from normal life. We played a lot of PlayStation, watched a lot of Sky TV - there was a big football net in the back garden so we’d try and get some exercise.” Friends of Elbow, Nine Black Alps and Tom Vek, Editors nonetheless disapprove of “scenes” and shy away from being described as post-punk revivalists. “That was a reaction to punk rock, so maybe we’re a reaction to all that brash garage rock stuff. We wanted to do something a bit different, which is maybe why there are more bands like us about at the moment.” They call the distinctively ominous sound of tracks like Blood and Munich, “dark disco“. A great name for paranoid, tense music that reflects paranoid, tense times. “We like to add a dancefloor element to what we do,” explains Urbanowicz. “Get a bit of a house beat going and see what it sounds like. We like to move people - whether it be emotionally or physically - and if we could make them do both that would be great.”
Victoria Segal
Editors – The Back Room, released 25 July 05 on Kitchenware Records.
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