Savvy UK critics adore comparing Editors to their ready-made short list of influences: Gang of Four, the Chameleons, Echo & the Bunnymen, British Sea Power — even U2, who they sound nothing like. The rest? Definitely. Carbon copies of each; picked apart and sewn together after a bit of trivial tailoring. The Stafford Uni music technology grads are no more distinctive than a fetishized, English version of Interpol copying New Order on a spoonful of cooked speed. That doesn’t change the fact that what they play is already much too big for a small club such as the Paradise. No doubt their mimeographed postpunk is about as fresh as a tray of Shaw’s sushi. And yet Editors are well aware that they can be past expiration date and still come through with the upper hand.

On stage they behave like military generals: already proficient at grabbing an audience by collective popped collar. Then they fling you around with party-prepped mope songs until you’re more keyed up than a couple who just got caught hooking up in the basement. By this point you’re open-mouthed, exhausted, and drooling a little. Sure enough, this is designer imitation perfume. Except nobody smells the difference once it sinks into the skin.

Russell Leetch (bass), Ed Lay (drums), an Chris Urbanowicz (guitar) are the refined background musicians here — serene tastemakers flinging the glitter so that Smith can sparkle in the afterglow. He’s no depressed Ian Curtis, or even a falsetto-cracking, wussy-sensi Chris Martin. Rather, Smith resembles a scrawny Justin Timberlake (pre-“SexyBack,” post-*NSYNC) with a sanded-down tenor barely puckered by his own saliva. I actually saw him spray on a few people up front. Nobody minded; they just pranced under the mist to “Bullets” while the rest of the place flung their arms in the air. Mid-song lurches aside, the only occasion Smith found pause was when he accidentally hit his mouth against the mic, causing him to recoil in a drunk confusion. He recovered quickly. “Oh, of course,” he seemed to be thinking, and then shut his eyes tight for the wailing chorus. “Yes, this is what I’m supposed to do.”

The band segued through almost the entirety of The Back Room in an order just as seamless as the one chosen for the debut. How can you go wrong with an album that comprises ten crisp singles? Despite the synthetic polyester blend that makes them such a easy pitch, Editors burned through a fierce, mouth-watering set without stopping to recharge batteries. I thought it peaked at “Munich, and suddenly, the band got a second wind during the shin-kicking encore closer, “Fingers in the Factories,” a song positively combustible with potential. “Smile for once, for a moment it makes us happy, what we need is here,” Smith howled, clutching at his face to wipe away the sweat.

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He was already lying to us. He just didn’t know it yet. The next time Editors stop in Boston they should be playing venues large enough to accommodate their derivative tinsel splendor. A choreographed light show will replace the three strobe lights. The t-shirts will cost twice as much. By then, Smith and Urbanowicz ought to have out grown the desire to end the evening with a little intimate crowd-surfing — which is just what they did last night. The two of them seemed pretty pleased with the attempt, as though what they needed really was all there. They weren’t fooling anyone but themselves.