In Dream by Editors

In Dream, Editors' fifth album, arrived through Play It Again Sam on October 2, 2015, and it's the first one the Birmingham band produced themselves. It was also the second outing for the five-piece lineup, with Justin Lockey and Elliott Williams alongside founders Tom Smith, Russell Leetch and Ed Lay, and they made it holed up on their own, deep in the computer, a record that only exists because of the studio.

The Weight of Your Love had been about proving they could still be a guitar band; Smith pitched this one as a step on from the electronic chill of In This Light and on This Evening, pop and experimental at once. It sounds that way: synths hum and pulse, the post-punk revival gloom rolls in like weather, and Smith keeps the darkness front and center. "Life is a Fear" is the song that made the countdowns, nervy and insistent.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.