Sounds like it’s the Editors’ end that’s starting
In 2005, Editors crafted a surprisingly solid album from oh-so-trendy sounds: taut Joy Division vocals, whisper-to-a-scream Icicle Works guitars, and an aggressive Gang of Four rhythm section. Their follow-up, An End Has a Start, returns to those same postpunk elements again—and again and again and again. Their formula works well enough on opener “Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors” when it sounds fairly new, and the interplay between Chris Urbanowicz’s guitar and Ed Lay’s drums on “Escape the Nest” proves they can tweak the formula forcefully. However, An End Has a Start yields predictably diminishing returns. With lyrics that often prove as saccharine as a Keane ballad (“Every little piece of your life will mean something to someone,” Tom Smith sings on “The Weight of the World”), these 10 songs repeatedly strike the same dynamic and evoke the same vague drama, each sounding more perfunctory—and more soulless—than the previous.