WINGING IT: FIVE ESSENTIAL DOVES TRACKS AND WHERE TO DOWNLOAD THEM

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Feb 27, 2005

Catch The Sun (2000)

Nearly two years after the band's first single, The Cedar EP, sold out its initial pressing in rapid time, came this gem.

Maybe the cornerstone of their debut album Lost Souls, it's a three-minute pop song extended to an epic, and like all the best pop songs, it relies on the happy music/sad lyrics dichotomy.

Glorious, soaring melodies, and guitars which, come the chorus, break like sun through storm clouds to go up against Jimi Goodwin's heartbroken narrative.

Pounding (2002)

One of the highlights of The Last Broadcast, an album which refined and expanded upon their debut. Living up to its name, it's wired and energetic;

the drums sound like they're tall as houses, and though there's a storm of guitars, it's the acoustic ones which dominate: they sound like they're being hit with the full force of a Pete Townshend swing. And somewhere in the mix, Jimi Goodwin warns that "this won't last forever." If only.

Blackbird (2002)

Recorded for the soundtrack to shoddy US extraterrestrial teen soap Roswell, and a cover of the Beatles' classic.

Goodwin sounds lost and broken, singing like a man who's ready to collapse. It's only the quietly-picked guitars that appear to be keeping him alive. Come the song's gentle conclusion, he almost sounds restored.

M62 (Fourtet Remix) (2003)

The original, from The Last Broadcast, was an adaptation of King Crimson's Moonchild, recorded underneath the Manchester motorway. Kieran Hebden, aka Fourtet, moulds the earthy source material into a furiously-paced, drumheavy trip, bolstering the melodies with echoing, peripatetic drums, weaving in folky samples. The entire affair feels like a 3am race through the countryside, the city lights approaching like dawn.

Snowden (2005)

"Hey man, can you help me out?" asks Goodwin, on this track from third album Some Cities, before posing the follow-up: "Why should I care?" And then the music explodes in a glorious orchestral rush. The guitars sound like a choir of sopranos, the glockenspiels their backing vocalists. That's why you should care, they answer.

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