Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors

I'm not going to play the 'Who's best - Editors or Interpol?' game, because it's stupid and makes people say things like, 'Editors are the poor man's Interpol' when, of course, they're the poor man's Bunnymen and anyway, Interpol are the poor man's, middle-class, more-exotic-because-they're-American Joy Division and...

Fuck it. Go on, then...

I've spend a week with the first two Interpol albums on repeat and I can confidently say that they're the most overrated band in the world right now. Y'know, I think they're really, really good, but Christ, the way people go all dizzy-eyed and devotional at their very mention...

Editors go for clarity. They have a keener ear for melody, while Interpol can be a bit meandering and murky (see 'The Heinrich Maneuver', a single that sounds like a throwaway album track). And although Interpol have some towering tunes (NYC, Untitled, Slow Hands...) they haven't quite mastered the art of telling a story, of crafting an album as a progression, a journey.

Editors first album definitely did that, and judging by this swelling, panoramic bewilderedbeast, their second is going to be another grand symphony of melancholy ("I can't shake this feeling I've got/My dirty hands, have I been in the wars?/The saddest thing I've ever seen/Is smokers outside the hospital doors...").

[MP3] Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors
[MP3] Interpol - The Heinrich Maneuver