EDITORS have never been a band to plan things, admits frontman Tom Smith. “Maybe we’re just drifting through life oblivious to stuff, I dunno, I don’t really care,” he says. “The fact is we cringe at the idea of sitting around talking about how our records are going to sound before we’ve started them.

“It’s a waste of time. Get writing, get rehearsing, get recording and see what happens; the best-laid plans will change 40 times in the studio anyway.”

Album number three, In This Light And On This Evening, arrives this week, accompanied by an autumn tour that takes in the Leeds Academy tomorrow.

Since their second album, An End Has A Start, sent Editors to the number one spot, life has changed for the Birmingham band. Although drummer Ed Lay remains in England’s second city, Tom now lives in London (and has become a father) while bassist Russell Leech and guitarist Chris Urbanowicz have moved to New York.

These changes affirmed that In This Light would be a new chapter for Editors when the band members converged on London for the recording sessions with producer Flood at the start of this year.

They were determined to push their sound into new territory, far more electronic but “giving the machines a human feel”, according to Tom.

“Making a more electronic record wasn’t really the point, the point was to do things we hadn’t done before. It was the most natural thing in the world for us to look at moving our sound somewhere new, to write songs on different instruments, to record in different ways, so that in the end hopefully we’d have a record that feels different from what we’ve done before,” he says.

“In my opinion, the great bands evolve over the course of their careers and take risks. This album will alienate some Editors fans, it will split opinion. Good.”

Tom started writing in the summer of 2008 and as the songs emerged they were emailed to the rest of the band.

“Despite the great distances between us, this is the way we’ve always worked, even when living in the same house together in Birmingham, everyone attacking the songs individually before getting together in the rehearsal room,” he says.

Flood’s influence as producer was vital to the record. “We set up with a full PA and recorded the songs as live as we could on to tape,” says Tom. “Many of the mistakes and flaws which in previous records we have ironed out were left in – if the take had that special something, it was about the groove and feeling, and it was about getting that energy we have when playing live on to the tape, even when stood behind synthesisers.”

The band tried whatever was in their heads, however silly it may have felt. “It was fun. We laughed and smiled a lot… we are capable of this, do you know!?” says Tom. “But this is still a dark record; a record that sings of no God; a record of broken love songs; a record where the filthy city is so close you can smell it; a record of drunken violence; a record which has lost all trust in those in charge of our world.

“We must be four miserable people to make a record like this though, right? I must be troubled to write words like these? No, absolutely not. Dark is interesting, dark is exciting, dark can be funny, there’s real life in the dark, real life is dark.”

London dominates In This Light. “I think it’s in every song,” says Tom. “In the right time and place, in the right light and on the right evening, something you have seen 1,000 times before can still take your breath away.”

Hence the title of the album released this week through Kitchenware, a record that will come alive in Yorkshire light tomorrow.

• Editors play Leeds Academy tomorrow and Sheffield Academy on Thursday.