OK, you’ve had enough time to digest the album. You can only pick one track, go for it! Can’t decide yet? The poll will be on the sidebar alongside the rest of the polls DMB has run over the last decade.

I’ve also updated the long running ‘Your Favourite Doves album’ poll to include The Universal Want. With over 2200 votes so far, it may be a bit unfair on the new album. But if it is your new favourite album..

Doves returned to the live stage earlier today for the first time since Gunnersville back in September 2019! That feels like a lifetime ago right?

They performed for BBC 6 Music live in London. The session went live to air, they did three tracks, all of course from the new album. Great to hear live versions of Carousels, the latest single and 6 Music A playlist song ‘Broken Eyes’ and strong next single contender ‘Cycle of Hurt’.

After a year away from the live stage, of course there were imperfections. But I’m not here to discuss that, though if anything those imperfections reinforced how much we all miss live music, willing the band on to play the best version they possibly can, ‘endearing’ as many on the socials called it. Listening to the live session with fellow fans as we all ‘work from home’ it was a rare moment of joy and pleasure during the monotony of the lockdown wherever you are.

A big thank you to all who made the live session possible. It genuinely was a rare highlight of 2020. It should also be mentioned the new album was listed on 6 Music’s top 10 albums of 2020 (#9!) well deserved too. Saturday, December 5th will be ‘The Universal Want’ day on BBC 6 Music! More on that soon…

If you missed the live session, you can listen back to the show here. Starts 2 hours 34 minutes in.

A message from the Hebden Bridge Trades Club:

Doves play a live session for Shaun Keaveny on 6 Music next Tuesday, November 24th. The show starts from 1PM GMT.

The artwork for The Universal Want has been nominated for the best vinyl art of the year award by Art Vinyl. The album art comes from Finnish photographer Maria Lax.

Voting is open now at https://artvinyl.com/best-record-cover-design-competition/

Some shows to look forward to next summer.

June 19th at The Piece Hall in Halifax. Tickets on sale 10AM Friday November 6th at https://smarturl.it/DOVESPIECEHALL21

June 20th at Delamere Forest near Northwich, Cheshire. Tickets go on sale 9AM Friday November 6th at https://www.forestryengland.uk/music/doves

Back in August we invited all of you to interpret a then unreleased track, Forest House, using only ‘leaked’ sheet music. Thanks to all of you who took part in the contest. We have enjoyed listening to all of the interpretations.

The choice as to who should win the contest became difficult owing to the quality of the responses. The outcome is a three-way split, with a fans choice (Nathan Sinclair) and us finding ourselves with two, ‘band choice’ versions by Sean Bechhofer and Mark Lang. Listen to the three versions above.

We’re excited to announce the release of our first three albums on 180g black vinyl!

Lost Souls, The Last Broadcast and Some Cities will be released on November 27th (January 15th USA), all with original artwork, sleeve notes and a download code.

You can pre-order yours here: https://Doves.lnk.to/VinylReissues

As you will likely know the booklet that came with The Universal Want vinyl & CD was sadly lacking in lyrics much to the disappointment of many. Huge thanks to our good friend and Doves forum regular Madeleine Kuhn aka BlackEyedAngel, she has put together a lyrics booklet so that we don’t have to pull up the lyrics websites every time we want to sing along to the tracks!

The booklet comes in full colour form or black & white if you prefer. There’s also a seperate A4 lyrics sheet and an instruction booklet that will help you with how to put the booklet together.

🔗 Download The Universal Want lyrics booklet all files

Individual Files 👇

🔗Download the colour booklet

🔗Download the black & white booklet

🔗Download the booklet instructions

🔗Download the A4 lyrics sheet

Again all credit to Madeleine Kuhn for putting this fantastic booklet together and allowing DMB to host the booklet for us all to enjoy!