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100

Playlouder

This album is fucking brilliant – it made me want to cut my hair, paint the ceiling, fuck the postman and burn the disco down. So I did. Then I curled up in a corner, cried, and shat myself.

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The Onion (A.V. Club)

With albums as strong as An End Has A Start, Editors may get the last laugh.

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Boston Globe

The band's sophomore disc, which teems with drama and dark dollops of piano that swarm beautifully around singer-guitarist Tom Smith's clarion-call voice, continues to make good on the hype while again drawing on the past.

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The Guardian

Singer Tom Smith tempers his constant anxiety with flashes of optimism, his brittle nihilism with gooey sentiment.

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Drowned In Sound

An End Has a Start actually sounds like it was crafted as ten quite individual chapters of a long-running saga; surprisingly, though, it ultimately works better than its predecessor as a cohesive, flowing album.

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Billboard

Tom Smith's emotive vocals and the dense wall of guitars strike the perfect balance between moody, underground noise and more accessible, arena-bound rock.

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Uncut

Avoiding the ponderous repetition that dragged down songs like “Bullets” on the first record, they concoct a gentler, dreamier atmosphere with less apparent anxiety, and create a shadowy veil of sadness, shot through with hopeful transcendence.

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Entertainment Weekly

We'll give the Editors the benefit of the doubt, thanks to majestic jems like 'Smokers Outside the Hospital Dooros' and the existential title track.

The Phoenix

It's nice to be reminded that the world is shit and we're all gonna die. Editors have mastered the form.

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Spin

Editors have acquired a sense of urgency and emotion they lacked on "The Back Room." [Aug 2007, p.98]

All Music Guide

This is a decent album; it bears a craftsman-like solidity and many fans will no doubt be satisfied (and, more than that, happy) with it. But An End Has a Start is simply not the best album Editors are capable of putting together.

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Hot Press

In places An End Has a Start is bleakly compelling; nevertheless, great swathes of the record strain towards a pasty arena-rock future.

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Under The Radar

For all of its stadium aspirations and ggrand soundscapes, An End Has A Start runs together in a way The Back Room didn't. [Summer 2007, p.73]

musicOMH.com

By producing a more polished, more accomplished sheen while The Killers have roughed themselves up and forgotten to shave, the two bands have moved towards a middle ground where they're virtually indistinguishable.

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New Musical Express

An End Has a Start turns out to be a pupae album--it's Editors stretching their sonic muscles, poking the first spindles of whatever new form they'll take out of their gloom-rock cocoon come album three.

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Prefix Magazine

They are still too tied to their musical ancestors for any serious maturation to take place.

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Paste Magazine

These 10 songs repeatedly strike the same dynamic and evoke the same vague drama, each sounding more perfunctory--and more soulless--than the previous.

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Dot Music

Occassionally, the songwriting does contain flashes of thoughtfulness.

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Rolling Stone

The songs get puffed and fluffed up but lose the wiry edge of "Munich," burying Chris Urbanowicz's guitar until it all sounds like Coldplay. Nice tunes, but louder, please.

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Urb

It appears they have emulated themselves on their sophomore (and sophomoric sounding) effort.

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PopMatters

An End Has a Start doesn’t have the glorious indie-disco hits of Editors’ debut, and its toned-down sheen leaves us wishing for more bite.

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Pitchfork

It's a shame that premature commercial success has sullied Editors' creativity, because An End contains its share of bright spots.

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Blender

Tom Smith's stentorian baritone, irritating in its overenunciated approximations of gravitas, is better suited to some community-theater group than a rock band.

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Stylus Magazine

A record that's so deathly serious that each of it's ten songs could be associated with its very own biblical plague.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 59 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

David H. gave it an8:
A truly great follow-up to the exceptional 'in the back room' they seem to have matured well, produces songs with such epic quailty! the only criticism is that the album is slightly too depressing in places, songs like weight of the world are bogged down and dreary. Overall though, the album is again a solid effort, if slightly less than the debut; it still features some of their best songs yet. A great achievement! best songs- smokers outside the hospital doors, an end has a start, when anger shows, the racing rats, escape the nest and spiders.

DecepticonPom gave it a5:
M'eh!

Matt G gave it a9:
I am going to do something entirely unique here - I'm going to review an Editors album without any reference to either Interpol or Joy Division!!! I can do this because I am almost completely unfamiliar with their work (apart from the ubiquitous Love Will Tear Us Apart of course). I loved The Back Room. Though not completely flawless it was the soundtrack to my 6 month stay in Edinburgh and still brings back great memories. That album I liked on first listen, then the next couple I thought 'oh, it's a bit of a disappointment, all sounds a bit samey', then the songs developed their personalities and it barely left my cd player for months. And I have to say this album has been exactly the same. After a bit of initial disappointment and feeling of it not matching up with The Back Room, the songs then took hold of me and wouldn't let go. Personally I prefer their more upbeat tracks, with The Racing Rats and the title track probably my 2 faves, but there's not a track I haven't enjoyed. The fact is you can analyse this album and say it's derivative or whatever you may, but the bottom line is that for the past few months this album has given me a great amount of pleasure, and surely that is what it's all about, hey folks? And I just recently saw them live and they blew me away. One of the best gigs ever. Don't miss them if you get the chance.

Jurgen d. gave it a9:
Best indie album of 2007.

D W. gave it a10:
This is a great album and flows much better than The Back Room. The band is certainly maturing and writing better songs. An excellent live act as well. Love this new stuff.

Lynn C gave it a9:
Very Echo & B/Interpol sounding, but I like it. Kinda of surprised at the negative reviews.

Chris D gave it a5:
With a dearth of any truly new albums to review, this one (released in June) came to me courtesy of Strange Scottish Girl. The Editors are a Birmingham (not Alabama) quartet who hit in 2005 with their debut “The Back Room”, which went to No. 2 in the UK and was nominated for a Mercury Prize. I have this album, but honestly couldn’t tell you too much about it. According to my iTunes ratings its at least not completely unpleasant. I know that this band is one of the new wave throwback acts that are doing well in Britain these days - see Interpol and Franz Ferdinand for more examples. I am a child of the 80’s who just has never liked most 80’s music - despite trying - so I came to this album with a pretty negative attitude. I expected this album to be a continuation of, as one reviewer put it, “suckling on Joy Division’s bleak teat”. So, in some ways I got what I expected. Lead singer Tom Smith still sounds like he’s auditioning for an Ian Curtis tribute act. There is still a pallor of synth heavy depresso-pop that infiltrates many of the tracks. And if you listen to the whole of the album at a sitting I can guarantee that you’ll be a little bit sadder than you were before you started. I’ve just done so and am frantically looking for something a little more inspiring to cheer me up. But, “An End Has a Start” goes beyond easy-pigeonholing as a derivative new wave reissue. It’s dark, but with a hope of redemption . When, as in a lot of the tracks, you think you’re stuck in an Echo & the Bunnymen synthetic riff rut, The Editors bound out with some U2-esque soaring guitar and piano. Lyrically, The Editors use a similar motif - a transition from Bauhaus dark to Snow Patrol cheese as in “Bones”: “Oh retreat, retreat I’ve fallen at the low tide Now retreat, retreat And meet me by the quayside In the end all you can hope for Is the love you felt to equal the pain you’ve gone through…” And Smith’s voice is convincing and sincere. You believe his tale of lost love. This sense of transition or transformation is found in most of the tracks - particularly strong ones like “Smokers Outside the Hospital Door”, “Bones” and “Escape the Nest”. When it’s absent, when the songs drone along for the length of the track it’s just not very strong. In general, I think that this is an intentionally transitional album. The retread new wave market is limited in scope and frankly Interpol does it better than The Editors. But there’s a lot of room for British bands that do soaring U2 and “Bends” era Radiohead pop songs - Coldplay has sold 30 million albums and Snow Patrol’s last record went to number 1 in Britain and Australia. Maybe The Editors are smart enough to try and bring some of their fans along with them on the road to Top 40. The verdict. There’s nothing particularly original or compelling here. There’s no reason to run off and buy it right now, but its a reasonably enjoyable listen - particularly if you were in the right mood. Tracks like “Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors” (available free here) and “When Anger Shows” are excellent and if you’re a singles listener are definitely worth downloading. If you like Snow Patrol, Interpol or some of the darker new wave bands, The Editors might be for you. But unless you still dress all in black, have just recently had a bad breakup or are a 16 year old girl then I would recommend “acquiring” this album rather than paying full price. Just so you feel as depressed as I after listening to this record, I’ll leave you with lyrics from the closing track… “Take my well worn hand Let’s lock ourselves away We’ll never, ever step outside We’ll curl up in a ball and hide I don’t want to go out on my own anymore I cant face the night like I used to before…”

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