Doves

Rising from the ashes of completely forgettable dance outfit Sub Sub, Manchester's Doves surprised some people by combining goth-tinged melodrama, pop smarts, and dance-floor energy and sonics. Lost Souls evokes Fatboy Slim-style big beats and Beatlesque harmonies on a track like "Here It Comes"; on others, a dollop of '60s psych, some '80s techno, or even the Pink Floyd-inspired headphone rock of the '70s. "Sea Song" sounds suspiciously like Hurting-era Tears for Fears, but for the most part, Doves do a good job of masking specific influences to create a general mood of Brit sad-boy loneliness. It's striking how at odds Jimi Goodwin's mundane and homely vocals are with the pyrotechnics erupting around him. And Good-win's deadpan, some would say dreary, melancholic crooning isn't for everyone. You may not necessarily buy a word of what he's selling, but in the end, it doesn't matter because Doves are so adept at erecting vast FM radio towers of approximated warmth and passion. Real confessions can make you squirm, but Lost Souls only touches on what it means to be human, without ever reminding you that life is seldom so pretty or grandly realized.

Their followup, The Last Broadcast, is stylistically quite similar to their debut, and just as expansive and ambitious. Lyrically, it's even vaguer than its already kind of emotionally vague predecessor, as if this time around, all attention was put into the aural fireworks. Doves have an amazing ability to write a lilting, harmonious pop song, such as "Words," augmented by the right amount of discordant guitars that rub against the rest of the instruments until the whole construction starts to tilt. Flourishes on The Last Broadcast include the Brazilian carnival drums that end "There Goes the Fear," but the disc's highlight is "N.Y.," featuring stately horns, Link Wray-style slash guitars, and Pink Floyd pathos culminating in an exhilarating blast of electro-punk noise that trails off slowly into a watercolor En glish sunset. They pile on the sound via traditional instruments and electronics, along with Goodwin's warbling and sudden changes in mood and tempo, but in the space of a four-minute song, the technique becomes unwieldy. It's hard to fault the band, though, for having too many ideas or for trying so hard to turn a verse/chorus/verse pop confection into something that is twisted and ingeniously crafted. (SCOTT SEWARD)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide