TRACK REVIEW: Doves - Broken Eyes — Music Musings & Such

TRACK REVIEW:

Doves

PHOTO CREDIT: Jon Shard

Broken Eyes

9.4/10

The track, Broken Eyes, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pISDosb4Aes

The album, The Universal Want, is available via:

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/doves/the-universal-want

RELEASE DATE:

11th September, 2020

GENRE:

Indie Rock

ORIGIN:

Cheshire, U.K.

PRODUCERS:

Doves/Dan Austin

LABEL:

Virgin

TRACKLIST:

Carousels

I Will Not Hide

Broken Eyes

For Tomorrow

Cathedrals of the Mind

Prisoners

Cycle of Hurt

Mother Silverlake

Universal Want

Forest House

__________

SOME bands release an album…

PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Paradise

and you enjoy it, and there is a moderate amount of excitement surrounding it. With Doves, the arrival of The Universal Want is hugely significant and important! The band’s previous album, Kingdom of Rust, arrived in 2009, and many people wondered whether the northern heroes would put anything out after that. It is great to have an album from them and, whilst they cannot tour of put their new material out to the people at the present, the album itself is terrific - and I am sure Doves will be out on the road as soon as they can! I will review a track from the album soon, but I wanted to, oddly, travel right back to the 1990s when became aware of the band that would become Doves: Sub Sub. Jez Williams, Andy Williams and Jimi Goodwin were part of this very-different sounding group, and they hat a massive hit with Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) in 1993 with Melanie Williams. I think as Doves as being this transformative band who are always exploring new ground, yet the transformation from Sub Sub to Doves is radical! I want to bring in an interview from XS Noize, here Andy Williams discussed that period for the eventually-to-be Doves:

“Before Doves, you were Sub Sub and had a massive hit with the club anthem ‘Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)’. How did you find the transition musically from that to the first Doves album Lost Souls?

AW: It wasn’t an overnight thing; we had got bored of huddling around a keyboard and sampler. We grew up around more traditional rock bands, and we missed that part of playing. If you check out some of the later Sub Sub stuff, you will see we had already started that transition. We did a track with Tricky and did a track with Bernard Sumner from New Order, and if you listen to those songs, we had started with more of a band sound and playing again.

It’s well known towards the end of Sub Sub; our studio went on fire, and we wanted a fresh start after that. Yeah musically we were worried if people would take us seriously, but you’ve just got to follow your gut instinct with these things. We spent years perfecting the first Doves record so as long as the music stands up, no one can touch us, and we would get away with it, and we did”.

It has been a while since we have heard activity from Doves. They performed a big gig last year – which I shall mention later -, but in terms of albums, we have not had anything since Kingdom of Rust. Although Carousels sort of announced the return of Doves, it is actually Prisoners that caught my ear hardest! In terms of its immediacy and impact, it is this song that sort of brought me back to the Doves of old. It is a wonderful song and, whilst not indicative of the general sound of The Universal Want, it is such a confident and stunning thing. I am going to sprinkle in various interviews through the review, as it is nice to hear from the band, and I think they will help contextualise the album and their sort of return – even though they never really went away! In this interview with NME, Jimi Goodwin talked about the origins of Prisoners:

“Prisoners’ is about that yearning that Doves have always had,” said Goodwin. “Just over the horizon, there’s always something better. Sometimes we get trapped by our own behaviour. You can be a prisoner of your own thoughts. They can take you to some pretty dark and unexpected places if you let them. It’s a song about checking yourself. It’s not to do with lockdown or the pandemic, it’s just the day to day wellbeing. A lot of Doves lyrics are shot through with that notion of having a word with yourself.”

The frontman continued: “Self care is getting easier, and it should never have been taboo to speak about mental health. People are more inclined to show their emotions a bit more these days. A problem shared is a problem halved. There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘This life caper is hard’”.

PHOTO CREDIT: CityLife Manchester

This is a new stage for Doves, and this is them releasing music in a whole new decade! Whilst 2020 is not an ideal year to release new music, the Cheshire band have given us all a treat, and it is wonderful having The Universal Want in the world. It must be a bit intimidating for them to have a record out, and at such a strange time! If Doves had released an album this year after a little break, then there might not have been so much intensity and focus. Because they have been away for a long time, there is so much more attention at their door. In a year like 2020, having to field that sort of intensity and expectation must seem strange for the boys. I have heard interviews with Doves, and they are glad people love the album and singles so far, and it sounds like they are really looking forward to the next stage! It is amazing to think that it has been eleven years since Doves put out an album, and they must feel the same! In fact, returning to that NME interview with Jimi Goodwin, the frontman talked about the band’s return and what the new record is about:

“It’s probably the most organically-made Doves record,” he told NME. “No one was second-guessing it. It was born out of chatting to each other over email. I was meant to be doing my next solo record and they were supposed to be doing a new Black Rivers album. We started pooling all our material and the material that we couldn’t work into shape on the last record ‘Kingdom Of Rust’.”

“Time really does fly and I can’t believe it’s been 11 years,” he said. “We’re friends at the end of the day, and we just clicked back into place like it was yesterday. It’s nice to have had that space between the records. It was starting to feel like punching the clock a little bit before we took a break.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Redfern/Redferns

“We’re rehearsing songs from the new album so we’ll be ready when we’re allowed to play live again next year,” he said. “There was originally talk of doing a theatre tour this September, but the pandemic came along and put that to bed. Our first gig back at the Royal Albert Hall was so special, and we couldn’t have dreamed of a better cause or a better building to play for people who wanted to see us operate.”

Goodwin added: “We find ourselves in the middle of such strange world events. It’s still exciting to be releasing music, because I’m dead proud of what we’ve managed to pull together after 11 years. It’s like what Picasso said when German troops marched into Paris. He was painting an apple at the time and said, ‘Keep drawing your apple’. Keep doing what you do”.

So many people (me included) are pleased to have the guys back, and they have sort of picked up where they left off. Whilst there has been a lot of time between albums, I don’t think they have radically altered too much, and there is something new-yet-familiar with The Universal Want. I can imagine how odd it is for the iconic band to put new material out after such a gap, but they are relieved to put this material out that they have been working on for a long time. It makes me wonder whether there are other songs they wrote for The Universal Want that was rejected, or maybe there are extra songs that will find themselves in another album in a year or so. When Andy Williams spoke with At the Barrier about Doves’ return, he was asked how it feels having an album out after such a time away:

“Really good. Very, very nice to be getting new music out. We’ve spent a lot of time writing which we try and do day in-day out but to actually get something out is really satisfying. It’s been a great process getting there. We’ve been talking about how it was a fast record to make and it was mostly pleasurable as an experience. We had a really good laugh making it and we had the benefit of having a lot of material at the start of it which we hadn’t before because all three of us have been writing away from the band.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jon Shard

We also had a couple of songs from the vaults, so to speak, which we managed to nail this time which was so gratifying. It’s so frustrating when you can’t get a song right; when you have a good idea but you get so far and hit a brick wall and you have to put it down. There are a couple of songs on this album where the genesis of the songs began during Kingdom Of Rust. We’d heard them again a few years ago and one of us threw an idea out there to try and finish it.

Long answer to a short question! It feels really good to be getting a new album out. Cant wait for people to hear it!”.

Not to dig over old ground, but I wondered what provoked Doves to sort of put things on hold like they did, and why they had this kind of split. Not to rake over some potential drama, but I think it is important in terms of the record, and it gives a bit more background. It was worrying to think that Doves might not be back and would be consigned to the rubble…but that could never be! After Kingdom of Rust came out, there was this success and the brilliant reviews - and the band themselves were busy touring. They could not have foreseen that they would put things on ice after that album, and few of us knew that there were any issues in the ranks at that time. Whilst everyone is joyed to have them back, I wanted to look back at that time in 2009 when the band released such a huge album, and many were discovering Doves for the first time. In an interview with The Independent, the band talked about 2009 and what happened:

“2009’s Kingdom Of Rust saw no corrosion in their fortunes, making No 2 in the charts. Yet at the last show of its tour at the Manchester Warehouse Project in October 2010, Doves broke up onstage, to the surprise of most of the band. “Jez went ‘this is our last gig! Thanks everyone!’” Goodwin laughs. “It was our last gig in the campaign. Me and Andy just grinned at each other and went ‘what the f*** is he on about? He’s trying to split us up, is he?’”

PHOTO CREDIT: CityLife Manchester

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jez argues. “There was no phone call on the Monday, was there? Going ‘are we going in then?’”

Doves cite creative and business stresses, family issues (“life gives you a big whack now and then, dunnit,” Goodwin says) and the wearying album-tour treadmill as root causes of the strained four-year birth of Kingdom Of Rust, which necessitated the hiatus. “We didn’t argue enough,” says Goodwin. Their underlying issues “came out in bickering, if it came out. It never came out full-blown clearing the air.”

“Everyone had issues going on,” adds Andy, while Jez claims that “the process was way too long and painful. There was a very difficult writer’s block, we just went through it all at that point”

I will shuffle along soon enough, but I cannot talk about Doves and any of their new music without discussing that time away and what it is like coming back to the music world after such a while. Listening to The Universal Want, and there are no nerves or any suggestion that it is a big deal that they are back with us! That is refreshing, as a lot of bands would misjudge things or create an album that strikes the wrong balance. I think the fact The Universal Want is very much an album for these times and is providing people with so much strength and inspiration is worth noting. There are so many moments of uplift, but there are songs that make you think and really open your eyes. Regardless, before I move onto dissecting the album a bit, just a little nod to that time apart, and what it was like when they all got back together.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ceri Levi

Going back to that interview with At the Barrier, and the band talked about whether they feel there was new energy when they went back into the studio:

“I think so yeah; and an appreciation of what all three of us brought to the band originally. We enjoy each other’s company. We missed writing together and we also gave each other more room. If someone wasn’t feeling great one day we’d reconvene at a later date whereas during Kingdom Of Rust we were working solidly day-to-day; clocking in. It was quite militant. We’ve always had a strong work ethic but this time it was different because of the way we gave each other space if they weren’t feeling it. It was a lot easier as a process”.

As the years went by, one can imagine that the Doves boys looked at themselves and asked whether they would be a band again. I am pleased they have sort of had that time to reflect and appreciate their bond, and work on things that needed to be addressed. It is like we have this renewed and repurposed band on the scene; one that are ready to keep going strong and put out a lot more material – let’s hope so at least! I am going to mentioning a special gigs the Doves performed last year, but my last mention of Doves’ return takes me back to that interview from XS Noize from earlier, where Andy Williams addressed a very important question:

“The band were on hiatus for eleven years did you imagine the break would be so long?

AW: No, we did a Best of album in 2010, and we toured that for a few months then eleven years past, and we started this new record in 2017 and didn’t tell anyone. We started writing together very naturally, and we were more than ready for it again. Obviously, I have seen a lot of Jez over the years because he is my brother and we did the Black Rivers album. I only saw Jimi a couple of times a year, but we spoke and kept in contact all the time because he is an old friend.

We fell back into it, and it felt very natural and familiar, but in a good way, so the early days of writing were inspiring, and the songs were coming. We had a lot of ideas because Jimi had been working on his second solo album and Jez and I were working on the second Black Rivers album. Hence, we had a lot of material to go at, and we resurrected some old Doves songs that we thought we would have the clarity of time to work out what was missing in those songs and we eventually got those completed. On the whole, it was an enjoyable process”.

By all accounts, the reunion was not a big and glitzy affair. The band had to feel their way back into things, and there would have been discussions as to what direction they wanted to take. How strange it must have been for the group to come back together and discuss new material, and I get the feeling they would have preferred it was much more open and public. When looking back at the interview from The Independent, and a passage regarding their reunion and discussions caught my eye:

“The band’s reunion was a clandestine affair. With their parent label EMI’s having changed ownership several times since 2011, “we didn’t even know who we were signed to”, so they told no one of their secret sessions at a variety of locations in the Peak District, the Cotswolds and Manchester, beginning in 2017. With no pressure to write singles or please anyone other than themselves, they concocted a comeback that pays dues to their entire career, from acid house touches to anthemic choruses worthy of their 2000 debut Lost Souls, while also absorbing modernist flavours: glitchtronica, psych, amorphous synthetic tones. Comeback single “Carousels”, inspired by childhood trips to the fairgrounds of North Wales, is a dizzying array of sonic light trails, psychedelic steel drums and broken rollercoaster clatter, all the better to evoke life’s waltzer whirl. “We felt this was us trying to push ourselves,” Andy says”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ceri Levi

I will move along shortly, but The Universal Want is not the first we have seen from Doves since 2009. Unexpectedly, the band did play an important gig last year for the Teenage Cancer Trust, and it was a big moment for them! Not only was that gig one of their first public ones in a very long time, but the charity means a lot to them, so they would have had this sense of pressure and responsibility. Maybe not a pressure, but it meant a great deal for them, and they wanted the performance to be about the charity and not the band sort of ‘reuniting’ on stage. In the XS Noise interview, Andy Williams addressed that gig, and whether that performance helped facilitate a move into the studio:

“The band played the first show in ten years at the Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust in March 2019. The band enjoyed a fantastic reception. How did that feel after being away for so long?

AW: It felt terrific, and it was an excellent way to come back for a great cause. We had done gigs for Teenage Cancer Trust before. We weren’t going to do it, but then Roger Daltrey wrote to us directly, and we were big fans of The Who growing up, and we thought, “We can’t say no to Roger Daltrey.” (Laughs) It felt like the right way to come back. In the beginning, we were a bit scared but Dave, our manager, convinced us that it was a good way to come back and it was a good fit for us and it is for a fantastic cause. It was pretty nerve-wracking on the night, and there was a lot of expectation, but the audience carried us through it. There was so much warmth in the room, and it was a night I won’t ever forget”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ceri Levi

“After that performance, did it give the band more confidence when you went back into the studio?

AW: Yeah, I think so. We were kind of on our way by then in the studio. We had done quite a bit in 2017, and we did a bit in early 2018 then we put recording to the side for a while once we were offered that gig. We thought, “Right, we are going to have to spend some time getting our shit together and getting these old songs back into shape.” But yeah, we were entirely on our way with the record by then. We hadn’t told anyone what we were doing so that there was no pressure on us because it might not have worked out. We could have gone back into the studio, and it might not have happened, so we didn’t want that weight of expectation on our shoulders. But yeah, certainly the reception of the Albert Hall gig put wind in our sails, and we realised there was a hunger for new Doves music. That night was a humbling experience; people had flown in from South America, the states and Australia – it was insane how far people had travelled for the show”.

It is big to have the boys back, and I was keen to review a song from The Universal Want, as I have been following Doves for years now. Broken Eyes is the new release from the album, and it is a track that really interested me. I was eager to investigate it so, without further ado, I shall crack on…

There is this fantastic bit of guitar that opens Broken Eyes, that sort of reminds me of the 1960s and bands from that era. It is hard to describe, but it sounds terrific and it provokes this real sense of nostalgia – not that I was alive in the 1960s; it just evokes a feel of another time. The video is really interesting, as we see various different scenes in various different rooms. The camera keeps panning and does not cut away, as we move from room to room and explore these different scenes. I think it is a great video and, rather than steering the listener to a particular truth or origin of Broken Eyes, it acts as a fantastic accompaniment that deserves multiple viewings. After that introduction guitar, our hero steps to the microphone. The first verse really intrigued me: “There's a light but no one's home/You can hear the silence drone/A little artificial bliss/A happiness counterfeit/I've been chasing away those fears/Just happy to let things slip/Oh, when my angel appears/She's wasting her time”. It sounds quite a defeated passage, but there is a sense of purpose and rhythm to the vocals that summons energy and verve. In terms of sounds and compared to previous albums, I think we are hearing Doves summon the sort of vibe they put out on The Last Broadcast in 2002 – maybe that is just me, but this song could fit there. Maybe it is the hero feeling that he is defeated, and things are a bit lost, or maybe our man is finding peace within himself. The lyrics are open to interpretation, but I get a sense that there has been this tough time, or maybe the hero is reacting to the world around him and that is taking its toll.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Redfern/Getty Images

“I can't help it if you don't feel satisfied/You only ever looked at me through broken eyes/From the shortest of the nights to the longest sunrise/Broken eyes” comes next, and my perception changed a little bit. Perhaps it is not our man that is feeling lost or negative; maybe it is his sweetheart that has lost some faith and strength. The lyrics are excellent, and I think each listener will have a slightly different approach to the meanings. As the song continues – and, in the video, how we see these bizarre and striking glimpses into various rooms -, there is a pang of nostalgia and looking back on things. Our hero sings “I've been dreaming about my past/Thinking about a friend/And how we grew up too fast/Enjoying the years slip past/You see you're present, but never here/It's been a day, but feels like a year/Oh, when my angel appears/She's wasting her time”. Maybe this heroine is trying to help her man or maybe the ‘angel’ is this spirit or shoulder for him. In any case, I get the feeling that the hero wants to return to how things were and go back to a time that was simpler and happier. Many of us can relate to that with how things are at the moment! The band sound terrific throughout Broken Eyes, and it is a stunning song that reveals new layers every time you hear it! “I've been dreaming of you for days/How I wish you were near/Oh, when my angel appears/Don't tell her I'm here” are words delivered from the heart, and, again, I wonder whether they refer to a lost friend or lover - or it is just a plea to return to the past and finer times. There is so much emotion, passion and atmosphere in the song, that one gets swept up by it; Broken Eyes gets right into the heart and eyes, and it will be reverberating around the brain long after you have heard it.

I am keen to see where the band goes next, as they must be itching to get back onto the road and get their new material heard. It has been a long time out, and so many people are desperate to see Doves play near them. When Andy Williams spoke with At the Barrier, the subject of touring came up:

“How excited are you to play the songs live? Prisoners will be huge in the live environment; I can imagine the vibe in the room.

We have the tour booked for March and April and I definitely can’t wait. I’m hoping that we will be able to do that. It’s a massive part of what we do. We’re really excited and we’re already working out how we can play the new material live. There are only four of us on stage. Some come quickly but some are a bit more challenging.

I can’t wait to get out there, connect with people and see the whites of people’s eyes. It sometimes doesn’t feel real until you start performing the songs live. It’s the first time that we’ve put an album out without the usual shows”.

Long may the band continue, and they will definitely be out there next year and performing – keep your eyes on their social media to see where they are gigging! The Universal Want is one of the best albums of their career, and Doves have found new strength, inspiration, and brilliance. It is great to have them back with us, and 2020 is a year that has been made better by their return! Broken Eyes is a stunning track from the new album, and it is a song that I really wanted to explore. I will end things by throwing out a salute to…