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at a glance...
Hometown: Manchester, England.
Year Formed: 1994
Personnel:
Jez Williams - guitars, backing vocals, programming
Jimi Goodwin - vocals, bass, programming
Andy Williams - drums, vocals, harmonica, samples
Related Artists:
Badly Drawn Boy, Melanie Williams
Notes:
Sub Sub was one of the most disposable of Manchester's approximately three kajillion dance bands of the 90's-remember "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use")?-so no one was surprised when they disappeared. What was surprising was that they showed up again as Doves, a three-piece rock band using those Mancunian dance beats in very interesting and muted ways. They got a deal with Astralwerks based on some very buzzy singles and EPs, and their debut album was released in 2000; the American version has 2 ½ extra songs on it, so it's got that goin' for it, which is nice.
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Doves
Lost Souls
EMI/Astralwerks, Released 2000
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Hey, Doves, nice metaphor! That cover photo had me fooled all the way; I thought it was a dancer on the floor with strobes going off, but it turns out to be a boxer. Similarly, everyone thought you were a dance group just like you used to be back in 1993 when they called you Sub Sub. But this isn't some kind of little flimsy dance record-it's a tough album, an album not afraid to get its nose broken, a cool album with convincing body blows and a bunch of deceptive hooks.
Smart move, too, reinventing yourselves as a psychedelic emo-grunge dance rock trio, because you're pretty much alone in that category. And more kudos are definitely due for NOT having a ton of guest artists here to prop you up, because -- unlike some other Mancunian debuts this year -- you don't need anyone else. Your chops on this album are tight and terrific, the chords are nicely done minor-key melancholy, and your songs are enigmatic and heartfelt and deep and rich. So good on yez, mates; this album beats a lot of others for sheer feeling and wonder.
Your record is all about texture, isn't it? From the easy tense groove of the opening instrumental, "Firesuite," with its little screechy feedback and indecipherable voices buried in the master mixed into the jazzy guitar, to the Zombified organ hook that sails through "Here It Comes," these songs make a listener commit in order to get it at all. "The Cedar Room," in particular, stands out as such a song; there's not a lot to it, lyrically or structurally, but it just kind of pounds away at you until you love it and you see that what's actually there is Emotion and Love and Loss and all that unfashionable shit that we don't really expect in music anymore. Doves got it, and they got a lot of it. As for comparisons, I am shocked to suggest that this album is a lot like Pearl Jam's Ten, or Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, both of which have the same kind of thing happening. But Doves have funkier beats and are more coy about getting from Point A to Point B than either of those two groups.
Hypnotic, beautiful, and layered like a tirami su, Lost Souls is one of the best albums of 2000.
If you like Doves, check out:
Badly Drawn Boy, The Hour of Bewilderbeast
Van Morrison, Astral Weeks
Bruce Springsteen, The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle
Oasis, Definitely Maybe
Stevie Wonder, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants
Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
Pearl Jam, Ten
-- Matt Cibula
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