Editors' Surface, Echo & Sound is out today: 11 tracks, mandolin and a band recorded in one room

Editors release their eighth studio album, Surface, Echo & Sound, today, 30 October 2026, on Play It Again Sam. If you are new to the band: they are an English group, formed in the Midlands in the early 2000s, who have spent two decades making big, brooding indie rock that keeps landing at the top of the UK charts. This record turns the volume of that sound down and the warmth up.

How it was made

The songs started small. Frontman Tom Smith wrote them on acoustic guitar and brought them to the rest of the band after they reconvened in the summer of 2025. They then worked them up together, playing in the same room, at a small industrial estate in Gloucestershire close to Smith's home.

Guitarist Justin Lockey produced and recorded the album, and also directed the video for the first single. The band has said mandolin is one of the record's key textures. Lockey has described it as adding warmth without turning the music folky.

The tracklist

There are 11 songs:

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

The singles

"Call It In" came out in April 2026 and was the band's first new music since 2022's EBM. It arrived alongside the announcement of a 2027 tour.

"The Rush" followed in June, with a video shot in Tokyo and directed by Henry Ehara. Smith has said the song is about finding comfort in the people close to him, and pictured it as a conversation in a bar about life's ups and downs.

Where Editors go next

The band play a European run from 26 January 2027, opening in Rouen and taking in Paris, Madrid, Milan, Berlin and Amsterdam, then a UK and Ireland run from 28 February that ends at London's O2 Academy Brixton on 11 March. Check each venue's official ticket page for what is still available.

You can find every Editors story on ADMC through search.

This is a factual guide, not a review: we will have more to say once the record has lived with us a little longer.