Editors - The Weight Of Your Love

Die Editors sind eine Band auf der Suche: Vom rauen und in Richtung Dark Wave und Gothic abdriftenden Album "In This Light And On This Evening", das mittlerweile auch bereits 4 Jahre zurück liegt und bei Platten vor Gericht verdientermaßen nur durchschnittliche Wertungen erhielt, waren Tom Smith & Co. im Nachhinein selbst nicht mehr vollends überzeugt. Zudem stieg mit Chris Urbanowicz der Gitarrist aus, der später durch Justin Locket (Gitarre) und Elliott Williams (Keyboard, Synthesizer) ersetzt werden sollte.

In einer Phase der Neufindung befanden sich auch schon andere, noch größere Bands: U2, die 1990 nach Berlin gingen und sich von Dance Music zu "Achtung Baby" (1991) inspirieren ließen. Oder R.E.M. nach dem Ausstieg von Bill Berry, der u.a. durch Drum Machines ersetz wurde, was zum ungewöhnlichen und minimalistischen "Up" (1998) führte. Oder Depeche Mode, die sich für "Songs Of Faith And Devotion" (1993) dem Gebrauch von Gitarren, Rock und Gospel öffneten. 

So versuchen nun auch die Editors auf "The Weight Of Your Love" einen neuen Weg zu finden, lassen gleich zu Beginn in "The Weight" einen Gefangenenchor erschallen, orientieren sich bei "Sugar" an den rockigen Depeche Mode und klingen auf "A Ton Of Love" wie U2 zu "Achtung Baby"-Zeiten. Viel näher an Bono kann Tom Smith nicht kommen als bei den Zeilen "I don't trust the government, I don't trust myself, What is a boy gonna do?".

Fehlt nur noch ein Song, der nach R.E.M. klingt: "Formaldehyde", auch wenn er eher auf "Green" als auf "Up" passen würde. 

Doch wirklich überraschend sind die zahlreichen, von Streichern durchtränkten Balladen im Mittelteil ("Honesty", "Nothing"), bei denen Smith sogar in den Falsett-Gesang verfällt ("What Is This Thing Called Love"). 

"The Weight Of Your Love" wächst bei jedem Hördurchlauf, dürfte als drittbestes Editors-Album einlaufen und hat in der limitierten Version noch die Songs "The Sting", "Get Low" und "Conrade Spill My Blood" sowie akustische Versionen von "Hyena" und "Nothing" zu bieten.

(…) the brilliant artwork on the cover of The Weight Of Your Love and what I had heard of “A Ton of Love” have raised my expectations towards this new long play, with Tom singing an up-tempo song as he ever should and some nice riff work supplying the song’s atmosphere.

But again, all expectations were ruined. Despite the surprising “Sugar”, a sexy track with amazing arrangements, the whole album is an endless effort of the band to sound like REM, U2 or Coldplay. I really don’t get this need of providing an easy-listening stadium-feeling generic music.

If you go back to older material, you will see that the band can play mid-tempo and ballads, like the astonishing “Camera” in The Back Room and the atmosphere in An End Has A Start (in my opinion, easily their strongest record to date). On the other hand, tracks like “What is this Thing called Love”, “Honesty”, “Nothing”, “The Phone Book” and “Bird Of Pray” make this listen work not so pleasant, and I definitely don’t feel this one can be a grower.

Ok, there are still nice ones. The aforementioned “Sugar”, “A Ton of Love”, the bassline in “Formaldehyde”, “Hyena” (regardless it sounds basically as the same as “Papillon”)…and that’s all. Maybe I got too impressed with their two first releases.

(The Crystal Lake)

Yes, “A Ton Of Love” sounds like Echo & The Bunnymen. But Echo & The Bunnymen are brilliant. So shush now. If you have to sound like someone, sound like someone great, and not Bon Fucking Jovi. “Sugar” has the kind of rolling, pulsing threat of a mid 90's rock act, but with an emotional literacy they did not touch. And “Honesty”. Breathless.

“What is This Thing Called Love?” slays me. It has been years since the first time I heard something, I had to stop everything else, sit down, and just listen. It's just a song, but it's the story I've known over 20 years. Every word is ripped from my world. The first time I heard this I had to stop. I sat down, and just listened. Every word. And by the end, I was crying, This song is it. My world in a song. Knowing it is here I feel less alone in the world. Because someone else feels this. The comfort, as such, of being sad. My God, this song. This bloody song. No song I have heard in years – twenty years – has done so much for me. Nothing. Not even “Nothing”, the amazing song that follows it. Because the original band arrangement, played live regularity throughout the last year has been shorn away and turned into a heart-rending soulburster. But still, only a fraction of what it once was. It sounds like the changing of the world. Like the end of one universe, the start of another, as the world built unravels and falls away – as I've got nothing, nothing left – only you. We walk through a crowd of strangers.

“The Weight Of Your Love” is not just that, but this, but everything. Love, the word, the concept, the feeling, carries with it a weight and a gravity. It can bring you down, it can set you free. In all its forrms, the laughter, the tears, love is beautiful. We know. You do. Every kiss is a promise made of wonderful things. Every moment of love comes with it an inevitable sadness, one day we will be seperated, we will hurt, we will cry, we will be rent against our will from the things we love, be they life itself, or a parent, a child, a small rabbit. Love is to hurt, and to know that it hurts, and to be brave enough to love anyway. And that is the weight of love, and its a weight worth holding.

This record is amazing.

(The Final Word)