![]() Even Benjamin himself admits it was a “leap of faith”. To outside ears, it might seem like an unusual pairing: an anthemic rock band who’ve headlined Wembley Arena and an Ivor Novello-winning composer who is best known for his abrasive noise projects. Another new dawn: Benjamin John Power – aka Blanck Mass – has co-produced the album and come aboard as an official member. It’s Editors’ most leftfield material yet – a thrilling, unrelenting thrust of full-bodied electro-industrial rock. That ‘something else’ is a breathlessly heavy step up, with their seventh album, EBM. “We’ll do something that everyone really likes, and then we’ll go and do something else.” “It seems to happen with every album,” agrees guitarist Justin Lockey. “We’re quite used to that feeling of scaring our audience with new material,” he says with a smile. That was their first act of bravery, says frontman Tom Smith, and they’ve been taking risks ever since. Then, after their 2005 Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut The Back Room and 2007 #1 follow-up An End Has A Start, they switched up their sound for synths. When they emerged in the early 2000s, university friends from Birmingham, they were swept into a wave of indie groups with whom they had little in common beyond playing guitars. For more information, visit here.Editors have never been a band who do what’s expected. Returning from a summer touring Europe, Tora will take to Sydney, Melbourne and Byron Bay in September to bring their album to the live sphere. “Some of the songs have references to political things, there is a song on the record called ‘Bring Me Down’ and it’s a very condensed, shortened political discussion between the left and right … There is a heavy polarisation in the political world … I mean the President of America uses Twitter as a platform to speak.” “I definitely have a couple of years of feeling like I was trying to understand more… I’ve done quite a lot of thinking about not just my own experience but also the bigger picture stuff,’ he explains. While the words are considered and drawn from the band members’ experience, subtle nuances to the current political climate seep through for a socially conscious album. With smooth vocals, distinctive drum loops, strings and electronic integration, the 2019 album is evidently different thanks to its lyrically-driven tracks. Tora now boasts a widening fan base thanks to its relaxed indie tracks – with over one million monthly listeners on Spotify alone – and intricately layered sounds. “There is a lot of good moments but I guess one of the first very significant moments was at Fall Festival maybe four years ago now, we played at the Forest Stage on New Years Eve… that was a big moment for us, that was our first big stage show with a proper crowd.” I think that when we decided we were going to do music we would have to put in everything we have, but we knew if we did put the work in that we would be able to tour the world,” he reflected. When I asked Loewenthal if he ever thought this was all possible, his response was confident. Additionally, the likes of Sir Elton John and Annie Mac have both played Tora’s music on the international sound wave of Beats 1 and BBC Radio 1. That was 10 years ago, now Tora is slowly but surely adding experiences to its extensive resume and includes tours around Australia and Europe with sold out sets in Amsterdam, Melbourne, Paris and London. Bass player Johnston and Loewenthal dropped out of school at 16, and “decided to go for it”. Hailing from the relaxed habits of Byron Bay in northern New South Wales, the four piece band made up of Thorne Davis, Shaun Johnston, Jai Piccone and Jo Loewenthal have known each other since school. It’s something that we ourselves enjoy to play, listen to, create… That’s why we spent so much time on it and I guess that’s what we do with all of the music…” “If you’re not trying to step it up you can get lazy, but it’s so much more about the music more than anything else. If you apply the right amount of pressure then you can get great results”, the artist explained to ICON. ![]() “I think there is definitely pressure, and I think the pressure is essential. But to back up the highly-successful debut album Take a Rest is a challenge many artists know all too well and for lead vocalist Jo Loewenthal, they used that pressure to their advantage. ![]() I had listened to the band’s hits including fan favourites ‘Too Much’ and ‘Another Case’ in the past, but the second album aptly titled Can’t Buy The Mood (in this case you can certainly stream the mood) was a clear winner. When Tora’s latest album came across my desk last week as an advanced stream, it is safe to say I was immediately hooked. ![]()
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