Editors - EBM (2LP)

Editors have always had a knack for turning dread into something you can dance to, but EBM sharpens that instinct until it glints. Released on 23 September 2022 through Play It Again Sam, the band’s seventh album is their first with Benjamin John Power of Blanck Mass as a full-time member, and that single lineup change explains a lot. Power’s serrated synths and scorched-earth drum programming wrap around Tom Smith’s baritone like chainmail. The title does double duty: Editors + Blanck Mass, sure, but also a winking nod to Electronic Body Music, the muscular, metronomic strain of club music that powered Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb. Editors flirted with that world before. Here they commit.

The opening singles laid the groundwork. Heart Attack surges on bright arpeggios and a hook built for festival nights, but there is a steel spine running through it. Karma Climb is leaner, more urgent, bassline kicking like a light fixture in a basement venue. Kiss takes its time, blooming over a long runtime into a late-night epic with synth lines that seem to melt and reform while the rhythm section keeps pace. Vibe, released as the album rolled out, is the closest thing to a carefree moment, though even that glow feels lit by a cold moon. These tracks make sense together because the architecture is so tight. Ed Lay’s drumming and Russell Leetch’s bass keep everything grounded while Justin Lockey and Elliott Williams weave guitars and keys into the machinery, leaving Smith to play ringmaster.

What makes EBM such a satisfying listen is the clarity of its world. Editors had already crossed the bridge from guitar-first indie to shadowy electronics on In This Light and On This Evening, then refined it on In Dream and Violence. EBM feels like the payoff. The beats hit harder, the sound design is more abrasive, and yet the songwriting never gets lost inside the fog. Smith still writes in scenes and flashes, and those images land when the music heaves underneath them. You can hear the reverence for early industrial club records, but there is also a pop brain at work. It is the difference between a museum piece and something you actually want to move to.

Power’s presence is everywhere, not as a guest producer parachuting in for extra grit, but as a co-writer pushing structures into new shapes. Synths swell like sirens, then thin out to let a chorus breathe. Kicks stomp in four, then splinter into syncopation that makes the next hit feel heavier. The record never becomes punishing for the sake of it, though. Editors understand drama. They leave space for the climb, for Smith’s voice to stretch, for a guitar to carve a line through the haze.

If you have followed this band from The Back Room days, there is a thrill in hearing how far the original post-punk chill has traveled. The bones are the same, but the muscle is different. Songs are built for airless rooms, strobe lights, and sweaty shoulders, yet they carry the same bittersweet pull that made Papillon or No Sound But The Wind stick. That balance is tricky. Plenty of indie bands went electronic and lost their core. EBM does the opposite. It makes the core unavoidable.

Collectors will want the EBM vinyl, which shows off the album’s low-end heft and those glassy highs without the smear you sometimes get on streaming. I grabbed a copy after a listen at a Melbourne record store on a rainy afternoon and it has been a steady reach ever since. If you are browsing for Editors vinyl and trying to decide where to start, this sits comfortably alongside In This Light and On This Evening as a statement piece. And if you like to buy Editors records online, keep an eye out for the different variants that floated through indie shops. The artwork pops on a larger sleeve, and the sequencing clicks when you flip the side and let the second half roll. For crate diggers in the southern hemisphere, plenty of shops focused on vinyl records Australia have stocked it, and it is one of the stronger recent Editors albums on vinyl to live with.

EBM is not a reinvention so much as a hard reset. Editors take the darker threads they have tugged at for over a decade and knot them into something tough and gleaming. It is a record that rewards volume, that respects the floor, and that proves a band seven albums deep can still sound hungry.