If you were an Editors fan in August, it was a very uneventful 31 days with very little to see on Instagram. As was the case last month, Justin and Elliott have been the most visible members of the group but neither of them shared anything explicitly related to Editors. Instead they were out in the world pursuing their own separate interests. The insecure yet securely paranoid among us will indicate that this is proof that "The Two New Guys"( © 2012) are demonstrating the frustrating lack of forward motion in Editors right now and, in a worst case scenario, already transitioning slowly into alternative ways of post-glum living; Justin as a professional photographer/film maker and Elliott as a DJ and musician in his own right.
But wait!
Both of those "new careers" are already happening, and have been for a quite a while now. So while I don't believe that their status as the most socially present Editors personnel in August doing un-Editors things means anything sinister, it probably does signify something.
I'd guess that everyone is biding their time right about now, with plans that we're certainly unaware of being constructed and finalised behind the scenes. It may be that nobody wants to take the chance of mistakenly putting something revealing or incriminating on social media, where it will be jumped all over by those scarily devoted weirdos we've all heard about who spend far too much of their time considering the motivations of this band.
Cough.
With the chance of any surprises being leaked, it seems logical that they're pleading the 5th, sort of speak. They may have been quiet last month, but you know for damn sure that Tom, Ed and Russell are up to something. It's the wait to find out what it is that's causing the most unease right now.
After all, from what has been posted previously we know they have their 7th album ready to go, but the trick is going to be putting it out in such a way that they can capitalise on it to maximum effect. This will probably mean waiting until there's a greater amount of certainty in the state of the world, to best accommodate the promotional weight that will be required to get a band this size and their new record over in as meaningful a way as possible. I don't know how things work at PIAS but the volatility of scheduling any kind of appointment, big or small, would seem to have taken on a previously unnecessary risk. With Editors having already lost a planned return to Pukkelpop last month, caution would seem to be the correct course of action, however far from the ideals of rock and roll that might be.
I stand by what I said it about the last Smith and Burrows album, which applies in this instance. It's my feeling that it just didn't get the attention it deserved because one of the vital arteries of promotion, namely live shows, was closed off to Tom and Andy. Just as it was to everyone. I think the difference that a series of festival gigs and some club shows would have made to the visibility of OSABIGE would have been significant. I would summise that this and similar experiences have taught labels and artists about the need to perfect something they all pretty much had down to a science anyway; timing a record release. Success comes from ensuring that an existing audience is not just made aware and connected with, but that non-partisans are given a chance to consider their current choices and see the error of their ways.
It would be such a waste if the next Editors album was rush-released into a vacuum, only to see the span of its potential shortened by an inability to effectively communicate the band's ideas on a large scale. No disrespect to Smith and Burrows and the way they dealt with the new arrangement of the world when sharing their album, but I selfishly want to see Editors on big stages and in multiple countries, over and over again until I start the forget the differences between what I heard on the record and what it sounded like live. Whether it plays out that way is obviously unknown right now, but for some reason (gut instinct, weird hunch etc) I think that once the news breaks about their upcoming activities it will be more of a flood than a short burst. Why? Not sure, just a feeling.
For now, this is what Editors' Instagram looked like in August 2021 (spoiler, it's all Elliott and Justin).
