The Weight of Your Love

It's hard to find anything out of the ordinary here beyond the usual blend of angst rock and stadium bombast. [Aug 2013, p.69]

It’s hardly going to break any new ground, but it might allow Editors to escape from their past to some degree, and allow them to branch out and explore new--albeit, already charted--territory.

Editors' fourth retains their customary grandeur and gloom, but with a new immediacy and surety, as Tom Smith matures into a truly commanding frontman. [Aug 2013, p.86]

The results may not add to a fanbase that struggles to extend beyond the UK and the good folk of Belgium and Germany, but Editors give themselves a new lease of life here. [Aug 2013, p.94]

It all ends not with a bang, but a shrug.

No matter what mode they’re in, they manage to turn four-minute songs into small eternities.

Too many songs spend too much time doing precisely nothing.

There are glimmers of the band that went before. [Aug-Sep 2013, p.130]

Lyrics look for punch but miss--"I don't trust the government/ I don't trust myself"--but it's the piecemeal sound that seems most off.

The songwriting is solid but although their overall sonic palate has been shuffled, they remain a band largely focused on doing things with a tried-and-tested format.

The band’s audible aspiration towards greatness on this album is the most welcome aspect about it. You can hear the effort that was put into making it as galactic and sprawling as it is.

The ideas behind Weight have some potential, but Editors can’t seem to pull them off successfully.

The whole exercise seems so carefully crafted and desperately needy that any joy found within The Weight Of Your Love wears off the more you play it.

Although The Weight of Your Love doesn't succeed to the same extent as other, older European rock albums drenched in American influences, it makes for a nicely retooled, if occasionally misguided, formula.

With a bit more focus and a more cohesive feel running throughout it, this could've been a great record. As it is, perhaps as a result of their success to date and the expectation it undoubtedly brings, it feels almost like a missed opportunity.

The anthemic Formaldehyde and Sugar both have the potential to be big radio hits, while Two Hearted Spider is more down-tempo, but no less powerful for it. It's not without its longueurs, however.

Comprised of bass-driven pop turns (see the hooky backing vocals of ‘Formaldehyde’) and evocative mood pieces containing occasional flourishes of Americana (courtesy of American co-producer Jacquire King), nothing in the album’s solid latter half will reach out and grab you. However, there is just enough diversity evident in these tunes to stave off indifference and reward repeated listening.

The Editors here step backwards into the crepuscular netherworld of Eighties new wave from whence they took their original inspiration.

There are a few thrilling moments here—notably the cinematic ballad “Nothing”--but the band mostly flounders as it seeks a new direction.

What’s inside? Nothing. Which is, coincidentally, what this album adds to the treasury of human art.