Editors return with mandolin-laced new single ‘The Rush’ + 8th album announcement

Editors have never been a band content to stand still, and the announcement of their 8th studio album, ‘Surface, Echo & Sound’, proves it once again. Out October 30 via Play It Again Sam, the record marks a deliberate swing back toward something rawer and more human after three albums built largely in the studio.

To mark the news, the band have shared the new single and video for The Rush, a track that finds them trading polish for presence.

Back to the Practice Room

After 2022’s collaborative EBM with Blanck Mass, Editors regrouped in summer 2025 wanting to recapture the feeling of their earliest days, sat in a room in Stafford, working songs out face to face. Frontman Tom Smith brought that same stripped-back, acoustic-first energy he used on his solo record, There Is Nothing In The Dark That Isn’t There In The Light, into the new sessions, letting the band shape the songs together in real time.

“It was a very productive summer. The sun was out for the most part, we were in greenest Gloucestershire, not far from where I live, on this innocuous little industrial estate – it was pretty much the opposite of being in Berghain!”

A Bar Scene, a Mandolin, and a Lot of Heart

The Rush plays out like an imagined late-night bar conversation between two people working through life’s ups and downs. For Smith, it taps into something that runs through the whole record: the comfort of the people closest to you.

“That idea of finding comfort in people close to me, friends and loved ones and family, is a theme that comes up all the time. It’s a theme that is in everything to a degree.”

Texturally, the track leans on mandolin, an instrument guitarist and producer Justin Lockey says brings a “warm element that can spike through anything in the mix” without tipping into folk territory. A lot of the song’s rhythmic backbone, he notes, comes from the mandolin and acoustic guitar as much as the drums.

The The Rush video was shot in Tokyo and directed by Henry Ehara, whose work centers on bodily expression and the physicality of movement and presence.

‘Surface, Echo & Sound’ track list

1. Call It In
2. The Rush
3. Rescue
4. Shadow
5. Real
6. Happiness
7. Much Love
8. Butterfly Wings
9. Seriously
10. The Hills We Died Upon

PRE-ORDER / SAVE HERE

About Editors

Formed in Birmingham in 2002, Editors have spent over two decades refusing to repeat themselves, racking up seven UK top 10 albums along the way. Their debut, ‘The Back Room’ (2005), landed a Mercury Prize nod, while 2007’s ‘An End Has A Start’ hit No. 1 in the UK and earned a Brit Award nomination. 2009’s ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ also topped the UK charts, with 2022’s ‘EBM’ marking their most recent release before now.

Discography: ‘The Back Room’ (2005), ‘An End Has A Start’ (2007), ‘In This Light and On This Evening’ (2010), ‘The Weight Of Your Love’ (2013), ‘In Dream’ (2015), ‘Violence’ (2018), ‘EBM’ (2022)

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