Kevin WestebergThe first thing to keep in mind when listening to Editors is that they’re patently ridiculous. Their grandiose, hyper-dramatic Brit-rock may not be as over-the-top absurd as, say, Muse, say, but it does trend along those same lines. Throw in frontman Tom Smith’s gift for crafting nonsensical lyrics and delivering them as with an earnest, clenched-teeth intensity, and if you’re able to reconcile that before sitting down for a listen – and I, despite my better judgment, find that I can – then you’re fine.

While their debut The Back Room was decidedly lean post-rock, the follow-up An End Has A Start took a more widescreen, anthemic approach, upping the ante in dynamics, sonic scope and melodramatics. Both records, however, were built firmly on a foundation of guitars and that makes their third record In This Light And On This Evening, with its massive banks of synthesiszers lifted from the goth and New Wave movements of the late ’70s and early ’80s and buffed to a 21st century sheen, something of a departure. But only something. As the title track and lead single “Papillon” prove, Editors can be just as visceral and thrilling pounding on plastic keys as wrangling guitar strings, but when they fall into a more ponderous, mid-tempo groove as they do on the second half of the record, the results are less engaging and their weak points aren’t sufficiently masked by their strengths.

Editors make easy critical targets for the reasons stated above and many others, and people generally aren’t shy about taking those shots. But they deserve credit for being good at what they do and yet be willing to completely screw with their formula – that the results aren’t an unqualified triumph almost makes the effort more noble. That said, they’d do well to bust out the guitars again for album number four. I think everyone will be happier that way.

PopMatters has an interview with guitarist Chris Urbanowicz while Flavorwire and Filter chat with drummer Ed Lay. In This Light And On This Evening was released in North America this week, three months after the UK release. It’s currently available to stream over at Spinner, but only the album itself – not the five bonus tracks which have been collectively dubbed Cuttings II and are supposed to be appended to the North America release. They play the Phoenix on February 16.

Video: Editors – “You Don’t Know Love”
Video: Editors – “Papillon”
Stream: Editors / In This Light And On This Evening

Another British recipient of a delayed release is Little Boots, whose debut Hands will be available over here domestically come March 2. She’s booked a much fuller North American tour than the one that brought her to Wrongbar in September and it includes a date at The Phoenix on April 30, with Dragonette supporting.

Video: Little Boots – “Remedy”
Video: Little Boots – “New In Town”

And if Under The Radar reports that the release dates for Laura Marling’s I Speak Because I Can have been moved around a bit from initial announcements, and will now be out in North America on April 6, a couple weeks after its March 22 UK release date. She plays Lee’s Palace on February 9. NME has had a listen and offers up some track-by-track impressions.

Paste declares Mumford & Sons one of their “best of what’s next”. They’re at Lee’s Palace on February 15 and their debut Sigh No More gets a North American release on March 15.

BBC6 gets Bernard Butler’s thoughts on the impending one-off Suede reunion, which he says he wasn’t asked to participate in. But probably would have said no anyways.

A pleasant surprise from Tuesday Guide yesterday, noting that Elbow’s glorious The Seldom Seen Kid Live At Abbey Road collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra – previously only available in the UK and thus as a PAL/Region-2 DVD – has been released in North America with an NTSC/Region-free DVD. Not cheap, but cheaper than buying the UK version and you can actually watch it here!

Video: Elbow – “Grounds For Divorce” (live at Abbey Road)

Paste talks with Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, whose new record The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is set for a March 9 release.

Mogwai Special Moves is a website dedicated to the forthcoming Mogwai live film Burning and a live MP3 of “2 Wrongs Make 1 Right” can be had in exchange for your email address. Prefix has details on the CD/DVD/3LP live album entitled, appropriately, Special Moves, coming out sometime this Spring.

Rolling Stone gathers up the latest bits and bobs of news from camp Radiohead, but not including this video interview with Ed O’Brien at Midem where he talks about the problems the band had whilst making In Rainbows.

The xx have released a new video from XX. They will be at the Phoenix on April 4 and the Kool Haus on April 20.

Video: The xx – “VCR”

PitchforkTV takes The Big Pink up onto a Manhattan rooftop and makes them play for their cameras… or else. They can expect a less acrophobic environment when they play The Mod Club on March 24.

Disorder interviews The High Wire. Their new record The Sleep Tape is out in March.

Los Campesinos! have put out a video for the title track of their new record Romance Is Boring, out next Tuesday.

Video: Los Campesinos! – “Romance Is Boring”

Baeble Music is streaming video of a complete Camera Obscura concert from the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn last November.

Frank YangSo I’ve been posting a cover a week for about seven years now, and that’s kind of neat and all, but I bow down before Mr. Bill Janovitz, erstwhile frontman of Buffalo Tom, who’s been engaged in a much more impressive weekly cover series at his blog “Part Time Man Of Rock” over the past year, where he’s been recording and posting a reinterpretation every week since last November.

Over the course of the past year and a bit, Janovitz has tackled The Replacements, Neil Young, The Clash, Radiohead and so many more, including the latest installment – a tribute recorded Christmas Day to Vic Chesnutt, who passed away earlier that day. All have been accompanied by thoughtful writeups, interpretive explanations, social commentary, biographical bits – the couple of weeks around the start of November wherein he dealt with the sudden death of a relative are particularly affecting – and oh yeah, great tunes.

There’s so much worthy stuff available on his site, both to read and to hear, that I think I could spend all of next year just reposting whatever he puts up and feel perfectly comfortable that the quality of what’s being shared hasn’t gone down a bit (and probably even up). I won’t, but here to close out 2009 is a (large) selection of stuff I’ve loved from Bill’s blog and note that you can quickly check out all the others. Share and enjoy.

MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Little Mascara” (Replacements cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “The Campaigner” (Neil Young cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Straight To Hell” (The Clash cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “No Surprises” (Radiohead cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Rocket Man” (Elton John cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Man Out Of Time” (Elvis Costello cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Wendell Gee” (R.E.M. cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “American Girl” (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers cover)
MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Florida” (Vic Chesnutt cover)

Ian WestLet’s be honest here. It’s a couple of days before Christmas and a four-day weekend – something that people of all faiths can agree is a good thing – and you’re probably not reading this. Goodness knows why I’m writing this. I mean, I could be watching Lost right now – after years of holding out, I’ve picked up all five seasons on DVD and am ploughing through them like a fat kid on Smarties. But seeing as how I’ll be enjoying said upcoming long weekend almost certainly sans blog, I should probably clear out whatever little bits and bobs I’ve still got on the plate today and tomorrow.

And we’ll start with the Brewis boys of Field Music. Done with their respective side projects of The Week That Was, whom I liked, and School Of Language, whom I didn’t like as much, David and Peter Brewis have reconvened their original band and will release a new double album on February 16 entitled (Measure). And it will be followed up with North American dates as support on the final third of The Clientele’s upcoming Winter tour, which includes the March 19 show at the Horseshoe in Toronto. You know, the one I’ve been kvetching about missing. I won’t harp on that anymore, but even though I never liked Field Music nearly as much as some, the first samples from (Measure) sound pretty damn good and I’d have liked to have caught this bill. Alas. Tickets for the show are $14.

MP3: Field Music – “Measure”
Video: Field Music – “Them That Do Nothing”

Fact talks to director Saam Farahmand about his plans to make an audio-visual sculpture from The xx’s debut album while the band tells Spinner that they loves them some Beyonce. Hey, who doesn’t. The xx are back on April 20 at the Kool Haus in support of Hot Chip.

Black Book solicits some random facts about the band from Fanfarlo frontman Simon Balthazar. The band also put up a video of themselves covering Low’s “Just Like Christmas”, recorded in their tour van whilst en route to a radio session for NPR.

Video: Fanfarlo – “Just Like Christmas” (Low cover)

Editors have released a second video from In This Light And On This Evening, which will have a North American release on January 19. They play The Phoenix on February 16.

Video: Editors – “You Don’t Know Love”

Frightened Rabbit drummer Grant Hutchison offers The Scotsman a holiday-themed poem. Frightened Rabbit’s The Winter Of Mixed Drinks is out March 16.

Rolling Stone talks to Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien about the decade that was.

Clash solicits some Christmas memories from The Horrors’ Faris Badwan.

The Big Issue has a quick chat with Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine.

Filter has a three-part conversation with Bad Lieutenant frontman Bernard Sumner. Congratulations go out to Heather, Caroline, Andrea, Brian and Jo who won copies of Never Cry Another Tear on vinyl.

The AV Club interviews Ray Davies.

The Times contemplates the future of the album as an artistic statement, looking to Bat For Lashes, Kasabian and Mastadon for input.

YouTubeOh what a rolodex Neil Finn must have. In 2001, the former Split Enz and current Crowded House singer assembled a host of talent including Johnny Marr, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder for a collaborative project and concert dubbed 7 Worlds Collide, which would spawn a live album and DVD.

Seven years later, Finn would again gather together a stellar lineup including many of the same players and some new ones, including much of Wilco, for a studio album of all-new songs released as The Sun Came Out in August and a set of charity concerts in benefit of Oxfam which featured much mixing and matching of personnel for many-old songs. One combination put Jeff Tweedy in front of the mic to perform Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”. When an audience video from one of the shows got online, the internet seemed to collectively lose its shit but I was much more excited to hear this fan recording from a different show on account of the audio being much, much, much better.

Wilco are in the midst of a North American tour which brings them to Toronto’s Massey Hall for two nights this Wednesday and Thursday with Liam Finn, son of Neil and 7 Worlds Collide alumnus, as support. Radiohead recently confirmed they would be making a new, proper album in 2010 and in the meantime, Philip Selway is apparently working on a solo record and Thom Yorke is again stepping out solo while showing off his own impressive rolodex.

MP3: Jeff Tweedy and Seven Worlds Collide – “Fake Plastic Trees”
Video: Jeff Tweedy and Seven Worlds Collide – “Fake Plastic Trees”
Video: Radiohead – “Fake Plastic Trees”

Frank YangSo here we are on the first day of Virgin Festival 2009 and what’s everyone talking about? The headliners of Virgin Festival 2008 – Oasis – and the fact that Noel Gallagher has quit. Illness was blamed when the band cancelled their headlining slot at the UK’s V Fest last Sunday, but this time the official word is there was “an altercation” between Noel and brother Liam and that Noel walked out on the band on the eve of a show in Paris, with all subsequent European dates cancelled.

Now normally when 1/5 of a band leaves, it doesn’t necessarily mean the band is done but when that individual is the primary songwriter, it doesn’t bode well. But on the other hand, Noel has quit the band at least twice before – or was it thrice? – so there’s as much reason to think that it’ll be temporary as not. But until word comes that the Gallagher brother have reconciled or at least realized that they have no marketable skills besides being in Oasis, let’s reflect on happier times for the band like the one depicted in the photo – taken shortly after Noel was attacked onstage in Toronto last year.

Video: Oasis – “Don’t Look Back In Anger”

In more positive superstar British frontman news, Exclaim reports that Radiohead’s Thom Yorke will be releasing a super limited-edition solo 12″ single on September 22. And when they say super-limited, the mean it. Word is there will be only 4000 copies allotted to North America and only 300 in Canada.

Check out the first track from Bad Lieutenant, the new outfit let by former New Order frontman Bernard Sumner and backed up by Harvey Keitel and Nicolas Cage. Wait, what?

MP3: Bad Lieutenant – “Sink Or Swim”

Billboard talks to James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers about their new record Journal For Plague Lovers, which has a September 15 North American release date and will bring the band back to this side of the Atlantic for the first time in a decade (not counting that gig for Castro in Cuba in 2001), including a date at the Phoenix in Toronto on October 4.

The Manics’ Nicky Wire, along with Emmy The Great, Micachu’s Mica Levi and a host of others awash in indie cred talk to The Guardian about their favourite top-40 pop songs.

Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan talks to Spinner about jamming with Wilco during their show together in Brooklyn earlier this Summer. Yo La are in town on October 3 in support of Popular Songs, out September 8, and are Wilco here for two nights at Massey Hall not a fortnight later on October 14 and 15.

Spinner has an Interface session with The Dodos. The Time To Die is out September 15 and they are at Lee’s Palace on October 17.

And apparently Pixies played a warm-up club gig in Hamilton last night at the Casbah, to around 150 lucky folks, thus ensuring they are properly warmed-up for their oughta-be-headlining-but-not slot at V Fest tonight.