| Doves - Lost Souls |
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 I
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.
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Rating: 9 out of
10
Reviewed by Gordon Peppard
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