Editors
The Back Room
(Kitchenware)
Three and a half out of five stars
Editors' debut album immediately calls to mind the rash of Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen-influenced bands gaining popularity. When it comes to comparisons to modern groups, Editors fall somewhere in between the frantic energy of Bloc Party and the energetic gloom of Interpol. While The Back Room has many high points, particularly the frenetic "Fingers in the Factory," it takes a lot of patience to get to the last track, with each song ultimately sounding like something you've heard plenty of times before.
-- benjamin.horowitz@asu.edu
Liars
Drum's Not Dead
(Mute)
Four out of five stars
Best known for their 2002 dance-rock debut, They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, Liars' third and newest release, Drum's Not Dead, sounds like a completely different band. Although some fans won't appreciate the ambient and often lyric-less tracks, the eerie and innovative sounds on this album ought to rope in a new slew of fans, perhaps those that were too pretentious to dance to the first album. Although the vocals take the backseat to the drumming, they range from falsetto to chanting to a low growl. Though certainly not a radio-friendly album with its epic Velvet Underground-esque intros and outros, "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack" is a chillingly beautiful track.
-- adriane.goetz@asu.edu
