Editors Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
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Reviews Rock and Indie
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Thursday, 14 June 2007 |
 Given the curious title of their comeback song, there’s a mild irony that Editors’ strongest, most affecting single to date is released a couple of weeks after England introduces a smoking ban. But if there were doubts that Editors’ are destined for anything but greatness, it’s dispelled with this copper-bottomed, soaring, epic of a song. Stylistically, ‘Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors’ is no great departure from anything off ‘The Back Room’, but the sound has expanded greatly. More assured, and with keening guitar licks borrowed from The Edge and the pulse of U2’s rhythm section, ‘Smokers…’ pulls the same strings as Coldplay’s ‘In My Place’ – the song that catapulted them to the major league.
While the Coldplay similarities are inescapable – even down to the Fix You-style neo-gospel balladry in the coda – singer Tom Smith and his group owe too much of a debt to fellow gloom rockers Joy Division to morph into Snow Patrol or Athlete. The subject matter alone warrants attention, “The saddest things that I’ve ever seen were smokers outside the hospital doors,” wails Smith in a bittersweet ode to life’s painful contradictions. So, if forthcoming album ‘An End Has A Start’ is as frighteningly good as anticipated, expect the world’s music press to sew its tongue into the back of Editor’s impossibly black trousers come July.
Rating: 4/5
Label: Kitchenware Records
Website: www.editorsofficial.com
Words: Alex Donohue
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