Kingdom of Rust

Doves’ fourth work promises to be its most successful one

The Mancunian trio Doves consisting of vocalist, bassist and guitarist Jimi Goodwin and brothers Jez and Andy Williams playing guitar and drums has been pleasing its fans with the wonderful rock for almost a whole decade now. Its music combines the Radiohead melancholy with the monumental sound of U2 and Coldplay’s lyrical feel. Releasing several successful albums the band has got a firm fame of musicians who artfully play all their instruments and easily making them emanate euphoric, danceable and cheerful moods and endlessly sad, nostalgic and hopelessly desperate notes. This April the trio releases its fourth studio creation Kingdom Of Rust promising to become the most successful in the Mancunians’ entire discography. No doubt an album like this has been long anticipated from Doves and finally the pretender to be called the year's best rock work is ready to please us with the contrasts of merry and sad within each of these excellent songs.

The keyboards play an important role on Kingdom Of Rust

The album Kingdom Of Rust is 11 compositions faultless in the respect music and content. Naturally the keyboards play an important role but one should not underestimate the rest of the components. The album opens with the composition Jetstream, contagious, vivid, bold and giving the mood to the whole record at once. The keyboards amuse your imagination no less than the drums and vocals and the memorable tune is sure to leave nobody indifferent. No wonder that it is exactly the track that Doves has offered to its fans as a free download on its official web site. The title composition is remarkable for the most interesting guitar hooks and keyboards giving the song a more positive color than its lyrics: Doves’ trademark style is revealed especially brightly here. The same is true about the up-tempo track The Outsiders: a colossal bass-line, powerful guitars, unimaginable drums and amazing vocals – everything here witnesses that the Mancunian team is in its best form and is not going to give it all up singing some simple songs. Pretty tracks Winter Hill refined with melodious and very positive keyboards and 10-03, the most contradictory on the album prove to be quite appropriate here after such a stormy piece. Among the record’s highlights one should name such songs as the psychedelic song Birds Flew Backwards, the shortest on the album, Compulsion filled with bitter thoughts and boasting a catchy melody and House Of Mirrors amazing with its hopelessness being one of the heaviest moments on the record. This flow of thoughts and feelings is finished on the philosophic composition Lifelines once again a perfect rock number making it clear that Doves know exactly what it is doing.

The best of the best

Although each of Doves’ three previous tracks deserves praise and has given the world enough of hits Kingdom Of Rust has really turned out to be the best of the best in every way. The album was recorded in an farm house in Cheshire equipped as a studio and with the participation of such producers as John Leckie who has worked with the teams Radiohead, The Stone Roses and The Fall, and Dan Austin, the programmer for Massive Attack, and with Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers. This time the contrasts have proved to be even more harmonious, the guitars even more powerful and expressive, the vocals have never sounded so powerful and emotional and the keyboards have never been so bright, rendering so distinctly all the necessary shades of mood. No matter what the band members look like – at most their pictures they never seem a successful band but rather a bunch of some fishers suffering a hangover – Doves is one of the leading rock bands of our time and its future creations will be as anticipated and surely successful as the brilliant work that is Kingdom Of Rust.