Doves’ guest editorship of Q The Music.com this week, continues apace. Today’s Doves feature is Andy’s recollections of creating the Lost Souls album.
…By this time the studio fire had happened in our first studio in Ancoats, Manchester and as we were signed to Rob Gretton’s label he suggested renting New Order’s Cheetham Hill studio off them. This was where the bulk of the album was recorded. We really did lock ourselves away for 3 to 4 years until we discovered how we wanted to sound, it was a pretty oppressive place with no windows and thieves trying to break in!
NME.com has today posted a new interview video with Jimi and Andy.
Doves have revealed that the making of their new album was almost like “therapy”.
The group, who release their fourth album ‘Kingdom Of Rust’ today (April 6), said it helped them get through some dark times.
Speaking exclusively to NME.COM lead singer Jimi Goodwin said: “Going to work was helpful and therapy sometimes to get through some not so good times in some of our lives.”
The band also admitted writing tracks for the record wasn’t always easy.
Goodwin admitted: “This one [album] just took a bit longer to understand what we were trying to achieve after being in a band together for 18, 19 years.”
He continued: “I mean none of us have fallen out, we still get on really well it’s just we just had to make sure the chemistry was still there between us, and it was, but it just took a bit of prising out and wrestling with a bit more this time.”
Incidentally, NME TV’s Weekly Agenda feature advises its viewers to purchase the album – and the hosts state that they will have live footage of Doves on NME.com soon. You can view the video by visiting this link.
Jimi & Jez appeared last week on MTV Two’s U.K. Gonzo show. Their appearance was originally scheduled for the prior week, so apologies for the previous misinformation.
Click here to download a video of their appearance; chatting about their work-ethic and trying to decipher anagrams of their song titles. WARNING: Contains Zane Lowe.
The video is an Xvid-encoded MPEG4 AVI file which should be standalone-compatible with most new DVD or AV players which are equipped to play DivX files.
While the consistent Some Cities cruised along comfortably, Kingdom of Rust is a bumpier ride, as we hear Doves playing to their strengths one minute, and giving in to their schmaltzy instincts the next. However, for a good half hour we’re hearing what sounds like a rejuvenated band, the three musicians up to their old eclectic mischief, sounding as ambitious as ever. “Jetstream” is inspired, the band’s dance element returning with a vengeance, thrumming synths, pounding kick drum, and flange-enhanced hi-hat beats backing Jez’s coy, detached vocals, and the furious “The Outsiders” rocks harder than the threesome ever has before, the song’s churning, swaggering hard rock at times evoking Swervedriver’s “Last Train to Satansville”. With its wistful mellotron loops, ambient touches, and the simple phrasing by smooth-voiced Goodwin, “Winter Hill” captures a pastoral feeling far better than the last album, while the shifts from rich layers of trilling melodies to the abrupt, tense bassline of the chorus on “The Greatest Denier” is an inspired touch.
Doves must be getting sick of the comparison by now but it’s hard not to wonder if the recent success enjoyed by Elbow could also happen to them.
After all, they’re both scruffy but charming gangs from the North-west who write impassioned, anthemic songs deeply connected to the region and who have been plodding along reliably in the background throughout the last decade.
So is Kingdom Of Rust their Seldom Seen Kid? In some ways, it could be.
What has always made Doves so appealing –the rhythmic undercurrents that betrayed their early days as dance act Sub Sub, the multi-textured songs which slowly reveal themselves –is confidently displayed here on songs such as the searing opener Jetstream or the dizzying Winter Hill.
There are also successful moves outside the band’s comfort zone, such as the throbbing, motorik rhythm that powers The Outsiders or the title track, a shuffling, achingly sad song which paints Lancashire as the dusty setting for a spaghetti western.
However, Kingdom Of Rust doesn’t maintain this early quality, flagging in the centre and exposing the craggier edges of singer Jimi Goodwin’s vocals.
With a cluster of formulaic tracks forming the album’s core, only the surprisingly funky Compulsion and the more forceful House Of Mirrors lift the record again towards its close.
A complex, multi-faceted record, Kingdom Of Rust will certainly appeal to Doves’ existing fans but it lacks the sheer force of personality needed to make everyone else sit up and take note again.
Doves’ epic indie rock mightn’t fall under what we class as “urban” and “industrial” music, but there’s arguably no-one more suited to that description. Their sound conjures up huge rain-lashed cooling towers, crumbling apartment blocks huddled under cumulonimbus-clogged skies, weed-cracked concrete and traffic-clogged sliproads. In these imposing landscapes stand the glum-faced Doves, the beating human heart of these soulless spaces.
Highlights are the Morricone-flavoured title track with its unexpected, uplifting Mike Oldfield-esque melody, the atmospheric Jetstream with its driving Kraftwerkian beats and spacy electronic flourishes, the waking dream of 10:03, and the rousing Compulsion, which mixes a funky bassline with vast sweeps of atmospheric guitar to great effect.
As ever, there’s something highly satisfying and strangely comforting about their sullen pomp, guaranteed to put some drama into a dreary drive over the M62.
‘Jetstream’ is de knaller die ‘Kingdom of rust’ opent. De groep beweert zelf dat het nummer gestoeld is op hun voorliefde voor Vangelis (!). Wij horen enkel de binnenrollende drums zoals wij dat enkel Larry Mullen jr hebben weten doen, in goede doen. De groep boet hier misschien wat in aan melodie, maar pompt zo de wilskracht naar het voorste plan. Ook verder in het album zijn het de drums en de baslijnen die voor de hoogste noot zorgen. Nummers als ‘The outsiders’ en ‘The great denier’ zorgen voor een dynamisch tempo.
Jimi has chosen ‘Jacob And The Angel’ by The Invisible, to be Q The Music’s Monday “Track Of The Day”, as part of Doves’ role as guest editors of the website this week.
Jimi Goodwin: “Lovely guys who have just supported us on our first short UK tour. Brilliant live. They were ending their set with this and it had me grooving every night.”
‘Jetstream’ is a powerful, Blade Runner inspired number –taking some twists on the Vangelis futuristic synth/rock sound created for the film and crafting a song cloaked in dark streets, neon signs and ‘silent jets at night’. This seamlessly takes us into the single, and title track, ‘Kingdom Of Rust’. Moving things from a future vision to a hybrid of Sergio Leone westerns and a road trip through the cold north. Accompanied by a most touching and captivating promo video, the sense is that Doves have embraced the cinematic and are attempting to be as widescreen as they can.
A telling moment arrives in “House of Mirrors,” in which vocalist Jimi Goodwin sings of ghostly alleyways and bewildering echoes. The song is an appropriate summary of the entire album’s predicament, for despite the steady hand of producer John Leckie (Radiohead’s The Bends), Rust gets lost in one too many back alleys and side paths, all of which the Doves are too happy to explore.
It’s not necessarily dramatic enough to call it a “return to form,” since Doves are about as consistently pleasing a band as one is likely to find these days, but the fact that they have come back around to more of the lush soundscapes and, yes, occasional nods to their past, certainly works to the benefit of Kingdom of Rust, the band’s fourth studio album. If anything, Kingdom splits the difference between the stripped-back rock of 2005’s Some Cities and the grand, pristine epics of 2000’s classic mopey debut, Lost Souls, and 2002’s more positive and equally brilliant follow-up, The Last Broadcast.
Renowned Chemical Brothers programmer Tom Rowlands lends his recognisable arranging skills to ‘10.03’ a stunning, intimate four minutes, which sits comfortably amongst the more high-octane tracks the album has to offer.
Four years in the making, but worth the wait, Doves return by mixing their early melancholy with the cathartic dance-tinged rock of Last Broadcast.
You can hear the cabin fever in the longing claustrophobia of the haunting Greatest Denier and Winter Hill. But the celebration of Outsiders and Compulsion match Pounding for joy.
Veterans though they are, they’re still as hedonistic as music gets. 9/10
These Brits’ last record came out back in 2005, but the time off hasn’t inspired any tectonic changes. And that’s a blessing: On their fourth album, Doves consistently deliver outsize rock drama, with slight diversions into New Order–ish electro (“Jetstream”) and hints of garage psych (“House of Mirrors”). Mostly, though, it’s all about the melancholy rafter-reaching, like Coldplay on their darkest day. The title track chugs menacingly before swelling into a sunlit chorus, while “Winter Hill” wrings sweetness from breakup sadness. It’s familiar, sure, but Kingdom of Rust has a welcome warmth.
FOUR years is a long time to take a rest from the music business.
But it’s even longer if your plan is to shuffle back in with a track that almost apologetically asks you to lend it your ears.
It’s a classic Doves ruse, of course: the gently-gently rhythms, timid vocals begging for greater prominence in the mix and a goosebumpy piano sequence are actually all just bobbing around hiding the inevitable crescendo waiting in the wings.
True to form, Kingdom Of Rust finds occasion to throw a few bolder punches as its reaches for a more panoramic prospective with a flurry of strings –a melancholic downpour over the otherwise calm proceedings.
It’s a faithful return, then –perhaps encouraged by Elbow’s phenomenal success, they don’t tinker with the formula.
Which is just the news Doves fans were hoping for.
NME.com has reported that Doves (along with Hot Chip) have been instrumental in resurrecting the legendary Forever Heavenly club night in London.
Legendary London club night Forever Heavenly is set to relaunch next month to coincide with the second of Doves’ two London gigs.
The night, which will return on May 1, was acclaimed over ten years ago for a series of legendary nights at the Turnmills venue.
The night will now return –acting as the unofficial aftershow for Doves’ O2 Academy Brixton gig on the same night –with the likes of Hot Chip and Playgroup getting involved.
The all-nighter will take place at the Corsica Arts Studio in Elephant And Castle.
Jimi recently spoke with Australia’s Triple J Radio, via a phone interview with DJ Zan Rowe.
Jimi from Doves tells you about their Kingdom of Rust…
Manchester band Doves are, this week, releasing their fourth album. The trio have long traded in epic, drama filled music. You hear Jimi Goodwin’s voice and you know you’re listening to a Doves album.
It took four years for Doves to give us a new record, and interestingly they’ve changed it up on their latest Kingdom of Rust. There’s krautrock, disco and electro elements this time around, but they’ve still kept their trademark sweeping guitar sound.
Last week I got onto the phone with lead singer Jimi from the band to talk about the new album, and asked him why they took so long to create Kingdom Of Rust.
To download an MP3 of the interview, right-click and save this link. To subscribe to Zan Rowe’s XML feed, click here.
Q The Music.com (the online presence of Q Magazine) have announced that Doves will be guest editors next week:
To mark the release of Doves fourth album Kingdom Of Rust, Doves will be taking over Qthemusic.com as guest editors next week. The band – who received a four star review for their new work – “an album of life-affirming, genre-busting, career-defining majesty”, no less.
Throughout next week, the band will be choosing the ‘tracks of the day’, the band will be writing about their dream Q cover star, plus their memories of recording each of their albums. Plus we will also feature some of the band’s finest videos.
Come back from April 6 to view which tracks they choose – and more …
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