VIA PRESS RELEASE | Editors announce their seventh album EBM, due September 23, 2022 via Play It Again Sam. The new album will be the first with new band member Benjamin John Power, aka Blanck Mass, who was announced as a full time member last month with the album’s first single “Heart Attack.” A second preview is now available in the form of “Karma Climb,” a stomping new single that pairs ghostly atmospherics with stadium-level anthemia, out now accompanied by a dynamic live video.
The six piece have also announced a 15 date European tour taking place in October, as well as 7 shows in the UK and Ireland in early 2023, which will see them play London’s iconic Troxy, with further dates in Nottingham, Norwich, Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin and Bristol. Known for their compelling live presence, the tour offers Editors the chance to test these new tracks in the live spaces for which they were intended, as Power explains: “There is a strong physicality to this record. EBM started its life with the intention of connecting with people and filling a very physical space. There is also however an emotional physicality running throughout; An urgency and a sense of panic. An unease. Even in its more tender moments there is a yearning for connection.”
A band who have never stood still creatively, EBM is a breathlessly heavy step up and Editors’ most leftfield material yet – a thrilling, unrelenting thrust of full-bodied electro-industrial rock.The album title is an acronym of Editors and Blanck Mass but also a knowing reference to Electronic Body Music, the potent sound that originated in the 1980s and which has hugely influenced Editors’ new material, where the synths of bands like Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, and DAF hammer darkly amongst smoke machines, strobe lights and the smell of leather.
Power’s addition to the band meant that, for the first time, the song structures weren’t coming from frontman Tom Smith, with him and further band members Justin Lockey, Elliott Williams, Russell Leetch, and Ed Lay receiving files to tinker with and flesh out in the studio when they eventually regrouped. “Ben has certainly been a shot of adrenaline in our creative process,” says Tom. “The songs are so immediate, and in your face.” Speaking on new single “Karma Climb,” Tom continues: “It’s about hedonistic escapism, not only from the world generally, but also from what people think of you.”
EBM kicks off the next era of one of the UK’s most intriguing and enduring musical success stories. All 6 of Editors’ studio albums over their 17 year career have charted in the UK top 10, with 2 scoring number 1’s, and their debut, The Back Room, being shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. Their latest tour saw them play their biggest UK headline show to date at OVO Arena, Wembley in 2020, signalling their ever-growing audience. Their successes have been just as impressive across the channel, regularly selling out tours and headlining festivals throughout Europe and beyond, as the below European Tour dates highlight. Arguably the key to their longevity is their ability to consistently evolve their sound, whilst remaining uncompromising in their vision. This next chapter proves Editors are continuing the trend.
