Editors
The Back Room

THE REVIEW

How wonderful it is to meet New Wave again twenty years later and find it with the same freshness and strength as back then. How wonderful it is to hear it today perfected in modern sounds and atmospheres, yet always tightly connected to those of the past.

After the celebration of Interpol, the greatest in the genre, here are new and worthy offspring of the great family of new wavers to which I also belong: the Editors (and not The Editors). These guys have learned the post-punk lesson very well and know exactly what kind of music they want to make and who they want to resemble. It only takes three seconds and it immediately feels like hearing Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division, and many others up to the early Cure and U2. Those who love to play "Memory" will have fun finding thousands of similarities, quotes, or references; I'll leave that to you.

The album is titled "The Back Room" and consists of 11 tracks; I specify this because there seems to be an alternative special edition with five additional pieces which may or may not be available in Italy—there are conflicting reports about it.
The album opens with a sensational trio "Lights", "Munich", and "Blood" that immediately set the tone for what goes on in this "Back Room", songs in perfect New Wave style, tight and frantic rhythms, jittery guitars, deep voice, and powerful bass. It feels like being suddenly projected back to high school days. At the fourth track, things slow down, "Fall" is a splendid and melancholic ballad, dark and desperate as I like it, with a powerful and chaotic crescendo finale that makes you want to smash the guitar.
Following are "All Sparks" and "Camera", two simple and nice tracks, properly arranged and executed, but honestly not exceptional.
A completely different story is "Fingers In The Factories", probably the best track on the album and maybe one of the best of the entire "New Wave" of the 2000s, a splendid dark and melancholic thunderstorm with an engaging verse and a powerful, obsessive, and hysterical chorus that makes you jump to your feet. A song to scream during concerts and engage in moshing.
In the same vein is the next track, "Bullets", with a gloomy and distorted bass line, worn-out voice, and blaring guitars, the same obsession and hysteria, and again intense moshing. But there's an aspect that chills me a little: here it really feels like imitating Interpol. Besides that, it's a great song.
The ninth piece "Someone Says" takes us to the times of "Boy" by U2, the guitar seems taken from recordings stolen from The Edge's drawer twenty years ago, something between "I Will Follow" and "The Electric Co.", quite evocative, I must say.
We are nearing the end of the journey and encounter the second ballad of the CD, "Open Your Arms", soft, slow, and melancholic as per custom but slightly more airy than the first.
It closes with an odd track, the eleventh, "Distance", which starts like a Depeche Mode piece but then quickly retraces its steps and guitars and vocals take over. A good track to conclude, very slow and melodic, a sort of Lullaby in New Wave version.

If you wanted to try to find the special edition, I'll warn you that the five tracks neither add nor subtract to the overall value of the album except in the case of the beautiful "Crawl Down The Wall". Also worth mentioning is "Colour".

In short, a nice, enjoyable album for enthusiasts of the genre.