Emma LeeEditors will be showcasing tracks from their third album In This Light and On This Evening at Norwich UEA on Sunday. Emma Lee speaks to bassist Russell Leetch.Emma Lee

How do you follow up two platinum-selling albums? If you're Editors you don't just break the mould, but smash it to smithereens. Throwing off the Joy Division and Interpol comparisons, the quartet - singer Tom Smith, guitarist Chris Urbanowicz, bassist Russell Leetch and drummer Ed Lay - have swapped guitars for synthesisers, creating a retro, Eighties-ish sound.

The lead single, Papillion, is a good indication of how things are from now on. Said to have been influenced by the Terminator soundtrack among other things, In This Light and On This Evening is a synth-heavy, dark and sometimes difficult listen, which is sure to divide fans.

As Russell explains, the radical change in direction from its predecessors The Back Room and An End Has A Start was a risk they were keen to take.

'We've always tried to do something different. It's exciting to try and re-invent yourself,' he says.

Editors are now spread out over different continents. Russell and Chris live in New York, while Tom and Ed are on this side of the Atlantic.

How does it affect the songwriting process?

'It's kind of the same it's always been,' Russell says. 'Tom would send out a demo to me, Chris and Ed and we would work on it separately wherever we are. You get a collection of songs together and work on them.'

And how's he finding life in the city that's so good they named it twice?

'It's great. I like it a lot - it's a lot of fun, like a breath of fresh air, really. I like being in Brooklyn.'

Of course, East Anglian audiences had already had a sneak preview of the album, as the band chose to debut new tracks at the Latitude festival.

'It was really good - it was our big one of the summer, so it was really important for us to have a good gig,' Russell says. 'I saw Thom Yorke - I liked him a lot.'

t Editors play Norwich UEA on Sunday (7.30pm) Special guests are Wintersleep from Yarmouth - the one in Nova Scotia, that is - who will be playing songs from their current album, Welcome to the Night Sky. The new album is winning them fans across the UK and has already been Zane Lowe's Album of the Week and made the A-Lists at 6 Music and XFM.

t Opening are the Joy Formidable who earlier this year released their eight-track album, A Balloon Called Moaning which included the singles Austere, Cradle and Whirring. After the tour with Editors they head back to the studio to finish off their debut album, which is set for a spring 2010 release.

t P 01603 508050 (returns only).