Alternative Cuts
Doves - Lost Souls
Doves - Lost SoulsI was an extreme latecomer with this album, released in 1999, hearing it just two weeks before the release of their second album on the 28th of April 2002. This was in some ways a shame and in others a relief, this band and their debut have been such a revelation to me that even a two week wait for more seemed like a painfully long time. At first listen ‘Lost Souls’ glitters with soul and melody. It’s slightly reminiscent in places of the brief ‘shoe gazing’ period of indie music ten years ago with it’s swirling guitars and wistful vocals but deftly sidesteps the student bed-sit / "I’ve read a bit of Sylvia Plath you know" hollowness which that music ultimately succumbed to and becomes a type of music of it’s own. By the tenth listen it’s another album altogether with songs sounding like friends coming and going through the room.

The straight guitar/vocal single ‘Catch The Sun’ is probably the most recognisable to anyone who’s ever heard of the band and is about as conventional as the record gets, elsewhere there are the breezes of ‘Drive With Me’, the playful joy of ‘Melody Calls’ and the towering layers of ‘Here It Comes’ to delight and confound. Where much of today’s guitar based music has found itself trapped in the cul-de-sac of distortion, three chord punkery and faker than fake ‘attitude’, The Doves glide on down a silver motorway of their own making, not appearing to care where it takes them. I would encourage anyone to make the journey with them. There’s an unusual, cascading, thrilling soundtrack to accompany the ride.

Two weeks isn’t so bad. When you think about it.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Reviewed by Gordon Peppard

Find out how our rating system works...
Alternative Cuts
Record Reviews
Live Reviews
Interviews
Links
Site Info

Search our site:

Reviewer's Pages:
Gordon Peppard
David Majors
Stephen Shatner
Alternative Cuts © 2003. the (alternative) music site.