Editors – The Weight Of Your Love
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Buy: The Weight Of Your Love’
Parting ways with original bassist Chris Urbanowicz and giving former U2 producer Flood a more prominent role has had a predictable effect on Editors’ fourth album. The Weight Of Your Love is by far the most ‘widescreen’ and anthemic album they have ever recorded – taking In This Light And On This Evening’s new approach to it’s epic conclusion.
The result is a mixed bag of an album, with some strong anthemic rock undermined by an occasional lack of conviction. At it’s best (‘Sugar’, ‘A Ton Of Love’, ‘Two Hearted Spider’, ‘The Phone Book’ and ‘Bird Of Prey’) it sounds like a classic melodic rock album in the mould of Echo And The Bunneymen. It’s also a very personal album, with Tom Smith seemingly working his way through some big issues with Edith.
The title gives the main lyrical themes away, and album opener ‘The Weight’ sums all the ‘love as a burden’ imagery up nicely – adding in a choir to boost the drama and significance of it all. ‘Sugar’ has the best lyrics: “There’s sugar on your soul / You’re like no-one I know / You’re the light from another world / You swallow me whole / With just a mumbled hello / And it breaks my heart to love you / It breaks my heart to love you”.
On ‘Two Hearted Spider’ Smith is even more emotional and hopeless – “I’m just a mess for you / Oh my naivety / Oh my fickle views / I feel my blood boil / As our shadows fuse / Every move you make / Breaks me, breaks me / Every smile you fake / Breaks me, breaks me”. It makes for one of Editors most powerful and passionate songs, with Smith audibly almost in tears towards the end.
The highlight of the album for me though comes with ‘Bird Of Prey’ – a stomping, string-laden track that has ‘festival favourite’ written all over it.
The big downside to The Weight Of Your Love is that is sags badly in the middle, with Smith’s lyrics and the general composition of the tracks veering too far into soppy territory. ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’ could have come straight from a weepy West End musical, ‘Honesty’ trudges along feeling far too sorry for itself and the promisingly-titled ‘Formaldehyde’ is too close to The Killers’ MOR atrocity Battle Born for comfort.
Although the good just about outweighs the bad, The Weight Of Your Love is far from Editors best work. With a new direction and new line-up though, it serves as a decent new beginning for the band – and should provide a lot of good live moments to add to their repertoire.
