Doves @ The Metro Theatre on Wednesday 29 July, 2009

It’s been four long years since the Manchester indie band Doves released any new music and recently they’ve been back in Australia to promote their new album ‘Kingdom of Rust’. Doves played as one of the international acts on the Splendour in the Grass festival line up, and also managed to squeeze in a few exclusive sideshows in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. I was lucky to catch these guys at one of the two sold out Sydney shows at the Metro Theater on the 29th of July, 2009.

After touring and promoting their last album ‘Some Cities’ in 2005, this three piece band featuring Jimi Goodwin (bass/guitar/vocals) and twin brothers Jez Williams (guitar/vocals) and Andy Williams (drums) took a break before moving to a farm in Cheshire in the north west of England to write, play and record songs for their new 2009 album – ‘Kingdom of Rust’.

Doves first came to my attention in 2002 when they released their second album ‘Last Broadcast’. Since then, I have followed their musical journey and was particularly interested in hearing their new album live and seeing the audience’s response to the natural progression and maturity of a band that in my opinion, excels in producing robust earthy tunes of melancholy that are both soulful and sentimental.

To open the night, the supporting act was an Australian band from Townsville, QLD called The Middle East. After releasing their debut EP ‘The Recordings of The Middle East’ earlier this year, this relatively new 5 piece band have managed to get some radio airplay with 2 of their tracks Blood and The Darkest Side.

The Middle East is an indie/rock band with a distinct folk feel and influence in their musical performance. Their stage was set with a wide variety of instruments consisting of both electric and acoustic guitars, banjo, drums, a keyboard, flute, trumpet, piano accordion, tambourine and xylophone. Their song lyrics and sound is quite sweet and enchanting, playing all the songs featured on their EP as well as spontaneously jamming in between. Their most recognisable song The Darkest Side was calming and magical, making a room full of muffled murmuring silent. The gentle guitar hooks with the combined harmonized blending of all the other instruments and soothing voices really mesmerised the crowd. All the band members lend a hand in vocals by singing a verse each followed by the break out of a musical jamming frenzy. As a supporting act, The Middle East were a good choice in preparing and introducing the crowd to the new tangent yet distinctive trademark sound crafted by what we were about to hear in the Doves new material.

At 9:45pm its time for the Doves set. The stage is dark with a simple black banner in the background with the band’s name ‘DOVES’ written in bold gold capital letters – (mimicking the artwork and gold text on the new album’s cover). To open the show the electronic track Jetstream and first song on the new record immediately starts. This definitely takes you back to the bands early roots in dance music of the 1990s, when the Doves originally formed as a dance act called Sub Sub. However, this track has more of the alternative rock edge infused with electro synth lines representing the evolution of what is now the Doves unique signature sounds.

The set was evenly structured with the band playing a string of the new tracks like ‘Winter Hill, Kingdom of Rust and The Greatest Denier then mixing in some of the old favourites like Snowden, Pounding, Words and Almost Forgot Myself from previous albums 'Some Cities' and the 'Last Broadcast'.

The new Doves sound incorporates hints of country/folk music, indie rock and subtle electronic elements. ‘Kingdom of Rust’ is a great album that demonstrates just how much the Doves have matured as musicians and songwriters.

Jimi Goodwin is definitely a musical purist. He is obviously very passionate about music and aims to perfect every song played to the crowd. He even restarted the track The Outsider at the sound of an off beat to which I am sure no one in the crowd would have noticed. Goodwin later became annoyed with some incredibly rude patrons who were talking over his slow acoustic version of Northenden in the encore. Last but not least, the night ends with what I consider to be the Doves best track and clearly the well known favourite to the majority of the crowd There Goes The Fear.

What impressed me about the Doves set was that they played a vast range of stand out tracks from all their albums with a comfortable ease that was both captivating and pleasing to the faithful audience. As a band that are already reasonably successful, from the response and positive reception of their last two albums ‘The Last Broadcast’ and ‘Some Cities’ it is obvious that the ‘Kingdom of Rust’ album consolidates the fact that the Doves are brilliant at producing incredible music of wonder which will almost certainly increase their fan base significantly.