Editors - In Dream

Five albums into their career, Britain's post-punk stalwarts Editors dig deep for a cohesive set of sophisticated, nuanced songs rife with a hard-won maturity, which still retain all of the intense emotionality of their debut. Though Editors have experimented with their sound in the past, 2015's In Dream is the group's most well-rounded album to date, combining the best stylistic elements of each of their previous efforts. Here, we get the driving, angular guitars of 2005's The Back Room, next to the chilly synths of 2009's In This Light and on This Evening, all wrapped up in the expansive, church-studio production sound of 2013's The Weight of Your Love. As always, burning at the center of these icy, monochrome anthems is vocalist Tom Smith's closed-eyes, pyrrhic, baritone croon. Smith, who has drawn easy comparisons to Joy Division's Ian Curtis, has matured into an assured, commanding singer, and Curtis is but one touchstone, along with Nick Cave, Neil Diamond, and Elton John, all of