Doves "Kingdom of Rust"

The most powerful aspect of 3-man band Doves is that their sound can be so big it seems to expand the very space in which we’re listening. Kingdom of Rust sonically builds a stadium and then proceeds to meticulously fill it, often building a song so naturally that its growth appears organic. Doves’ sound is so sweeping, so epic that it conjures an un-peopled, reverberating frontier rather than the Manchester setting in which the band developed.

Yet for all this dreamy expansion, there’s an intimacy to Kingdom of Rust, especially the track "10:03," a gorgeous Radiohead-like shoegazing anthem which builds to a pounding rock apex, the pinnacle of the album. This is a hugely confident, melodically affluent sound, and it does more than answer the hopes raised by 2002’s The Last Broadcast, which went to #1 on the UK Albums Chart. Doves has never seemed richer—with sound to spare—despite hiccups like "Compulsion."

2002’s hit single "There Goes the Fear" showcased Doves’ ability to construct a pop song to perfection, and they once again show off their artistic range with the title track on Kingdom of Rust. It’s a breakaway country confection to rival the best rollicking Spaghetti-western themes of bands working almost entirely in that mode, such as Calexico. Elsewhere on the album, Doves return to their dance music elements.

All too often, bands with such soaring instrumentation end up with flourishing, merely ornamental vocals, but Jimi Goodwin’s remain firmly anchored, adding acoustic weight to an ambitious project which otherwise might become too ethereal to be satisfying as a rock album. Retaining the spacey, ambient feel that bought The Last Broadcast so much real estate on so many best-of lists, Kingdom of Rust manages also to deliver an earth-bound immediacy, which helps an album withstand many repeat listening. This is convincingly their best to date, though flawed, as all the most inspired projects are. -Rachael Sawyer