Editors

Birmingham four-piece Editors — whose members met at Stafford University where they were studying music technology — have taken the spirit of the greatest '80s post-punk bands (Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen) and invigorated it with 21st century intensity. Superb live-wire tracks like "Munich" and "When Anger Shows" transmit a radioactive charge and confirm the real-deal potential of the band's considerable early buzz. People are fragile things, you should know by now, but the tracks in Next Steps are as permanent as tempered steel.

The sky's the limit for Editors, who picked up a Mercury Prize nomination in 2006 and made an impression across the pond at festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza (where this live cut of "Fall" was recorded). Other beautifully bruised peaches here include a live session cover of the Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere", a supercharged electro-heavy remix of "Blood", and a blistering live version of "Munich" from 2005.

Forget, for a second, the heavyweight forebears (U2, Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division) against who Editors draw favourable — and seemingly constant — comparison. Let's listen to the evidence before us on its own terms. Hangwire tension that suddenly snaps and propels us skywards till we scrape our knuckles on the stars? It's right there in "Munich" and the band's debut single, "Bullets". Intense-yet-doomed fireballs of sadness that lift us high and prolong the bliss before the inevitable crash? "All Sparks" and "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors". A remix to send your soul into spasm? Try Oakenfold's treatment of "Camera". Magnificent.