Editors

“In This Light and On This Evening”

Key Tracks: “Papillon,” “Bricks and Mortar”

Score: 4.1

Shifting style leaves these Brits stalling.

With the rebirth of the ’80s synth-pop dance albums on the rise, Editors’ fourth album seemed so promising.

Unfortunately, this was about where expectations ended. “In This Light and On This Evening” seems to pull from the past with repetitive back-beats and overbearing vocals.

Lead vocalist Tom Smith has always had a strong voice that demands attention, but it seems to make this work against him in this album.

Songs like “Papillon”and “The Boxer” feel unbalanced by Smith’s voice and the general sound of tracks.

The album was a step in a different direction for Editors’ typical style but left a backlash effect of tired, depressed songs and nothing left to fill the void.

-Cole Priddy/The Daily

Charlotte Gainsbourg

“IRM”

Key Tracks: “Heaven Can Wait,” “IRM”

Score: 7.5

Talented friends make good music.

When I first popped Charlotte Gainsbourg’s latest album “IRM” into my car stereo and “Master’s Hand” began to play, I immediately wondered if the entire album was going to sound like a bunch of B-sides from Beck’s Modern Guilt. Since Beck did write, produce and mix the album, I speculated as to how much of Beck’s personal style would permeate Gainsbourg’s third studio release. While “Master’s Hand” is quite Beck-ish, I was very happy to discover the exceptional and distinctive qualities that separated “IRM” from Beck’s earlier work.

“IRM,” which is French for MRI, has a lot going on. The catchy “Heaven Can Wait,” the daunting “Le Chat Du Café Des Artistes” and the sweet, acoustic “In the End” are just three of 13 tracks that possess a certain aura, which makes “IRM” a uniquely sonorous experience.

In the title track, you actually feel like you’re going through an MRI, which is exactly what the song describes, but not without a symbolic twist — “Leave my head demagnetized/ Tell me where the trauma lies/ In the scan of pathogen/ Or the shadow of my sin.”

“La Collectionneuse” has an eerie feel and is reminiscent of a murder scene in a horror film. Gainsbourg’s voice is incredibly haunting as she whispers — in French — for the last two minutes of the song.

In the quirky “Greenwich Mean Time,” a monotone Gainsbourg sings, “We’re all fine/ We’re all fine/ We fit together like worms on a line/ We’re so good/ We’re so nice/ We stick together like dirty horse flies.” An album without some form of upbeat nonsense simply sucks.

All in all, “IRM” has a perfect mixture of the fun and light-hearted and the deep and weighty. Gainsbourg, mostly known for her career as an actress, has pretty limited vocal capabilities, but her music and probing lyrics make up for it in fresh originality.

I tip my hat to Ms. Gainsbourg and Beck — who has yet to let me down.

-Rachel Landers/The Daily