- When releasing a best-of compilation there are two main routes you can go down with the tracking: order them so it sounds like a hit-laden studio album, or order them chronologically to showcase the band’s evolution with time. Now that, after fifteen years of releasing music, English post-punk-turned-something-else band Editors have decided to release a best of and so are made to choose one of these paths.
If you’re unfamiliar with Editors, they began as a post-punk revival band, and between Tom Smith’s baritone vocals, cold timbre and danceable beats—not to mention a preoccupation with death and misery—the band were uncontroversially hailed as “the new Joy Division”. Then after two albums they inexplicably went electronic. Then even more inexplicably they got rid of the synthesisers and picked up acoustic guitars and a string section. Then they put the acoustic guitars back down and picked up the synths again. It’s a journey which has evoked New Order, Echo & The Bunnymen, R.E.M., Depeche Mode and even recently picked up comparisons to Muse, though rarely any one of those bands at the same time as any other.
It is this constant revolution rather than evolution of sound that makes an Editors best of such an intriguing prospect. Of the two ordering paths, curated ordering or chronological ordering, the latter is seemingly made for them, which is why it is so baffling they’ve gone instead with the former.
To begin with it sounds OK: the new single Frankenstein is the closest thing to mainstream dance music they’ve ever done, and fits well before the song it takes that title from- Papillon. Then it launches into the reverb-laden guitar-work and acoustic drumming of Munich and it just feels jarring. Most of the transitions aren’t this jarring, but by about halfway through the album the overwhelming impression left on me is that I’m listening to their singles on shuffle, something which as a long time fan, I’ve been doing for years without the need to buy a compilation album.
I did actually re-order the tracks myself to put them in chronological order, with No Sound But The Wind sitting between Papillon and A Ton Of Love as per its original single release. To my ear that was the far more effective, taking you on a musical journey, not just throwing you into a jumbled mix of singles. I’m sure they worked hard on the order, but when most bands take this approach, the evolution between albums doesn’t so markedly outstretch the variety within them.
Black Gold is released in a variety of physical formats and with a bonus disc of acoustic renditions it has enough to interest long time fans. For new listeners, this is as good an entry point to the world of Editors as exists so far; and let’s be clear- every track on the record is great. Just try not to get confused as they throw it all at you.
- Sam Gunders.