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Editors - Push Your Head Towards The Air

‘Munich’. ‘Bullets’. ‘Blood’. ‘All Sparks’. The songs on Editors’ first album, ‘The Back Room’ delivered just what the titles promised - a sharp, terse form of rock known, because of its late seventies/early eighties heritage, as ‘post punk’.

The album sounds like Gang Of Four, who have the same emotional stance that’s somewhere between being po-faced and being terrified. Singer Tom Smith said, laughably, that when Editors were starting out none of them had heard of Joy Division, whose post punk sound was exactly like Editors’ and twenty five years before it.

Track one is a four minute version of ‘Push Your Head Towards The Air’, edited for radio from the six minute album version, which is track two. Listen to track two. With this song, and maybe this album, Editors have reprised ‘Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home’, one of the best B-sides ever. It’s slower, which gives the lyrics room to breathe and the music time to sink in. It’s their second album and Editors may have already found a voice that’s theirs.