The Doves

Mancunian indie rock threesome Doves emerged at the start of the 2000s alongside a cluster of compelling post-Brit-pop outfits such as Elbow, Starsailor, and Coldplay. Merging vibrant pop sensibilities carried over from an earlier dance-centered venture with anthemic rock songcraft, the group earned a Mercury Prize nomination for its 2000 debut and then reached the summit of the U.K. album charts with The Last Broadcast (2002) and Some Cities (2005). Momentum held through the close of the decade, after which the band stepped away for nearly all of the 2010s. The break concluded in 2020, when reunion concerts staged the previous year led into the release of a fifth album, The Universal Want.

Before shifting toward Brit-pop in the late 1990s, the three members—vocalist/bassist Jimi Goodwin and twin brothers Jez Williams on guitar and Andy Williams on drums—had been central figures in the Madchester scene, where they scored a Top Five single as members of the dance act Sub Sub. "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" climbed to number three in Britain, yet Sub Sub produced no comparable follow-up successes, and a fire razed their recording studio in February 1995. After spending several years rebuilding their sound, the musicians resurfaced in 1998 as Doves, whose sweeping pop-rock material drew more heavily from the Verve and Radiohead than from Sub Sub’s club-oriented peers.

Doves entered the marketplace in October 1998 via the Cedar EP, whose limited run sold out and opened the door to work with Badly Drawn Boy, who used the trio as his backing band on several singles. Two further EPs, Sea and Here It Comes, preceded a European deal with Heavenly Records, the established London imprint that had lately enjoyed success with Beth Orton. Heavenly delivered the band’s first full-length, Lost Souls, in April 2000, with an American edition arriving in October through Astralwerks. Retaining echoes of Sub Sub’s dance roots while foregrounding live instrumentation, Lost Souls received a Mercury Prize nomination—ironically awarded instead to Badly Drawn Boy—and yielded three U.K. Top 40 singles. By 2001 the American partnership had moved to Capitol Records, and Doves reentered the British charts the following year with The Last Broadcast. The second album debuted at number one in England, matched its predecessor’s platinum certification, and was driven in part by the number-three single “There Goes the Fear.”

While shaping their third record, Some Cities, Doves withdrew to rural England and settled into cottages, churches, and small studios. Though recorded far from Manchester, the album retained an urban character and entered the charts at number one. Further reach came through extensive touring that included support slots for U2, Oasis, and Coldplay. Several years afterward the group again chose countryside seclusion, this time in a converted farmhouse in Cheshire, England, to track another album. Kingdom of Rust appeared in April 2009 and peaked at number two on the U.K. charts. Despite ongoing commercial strength, activity tapered; after issuing the 2010 compilation The Places Between: The Best of Doves, the band entered an extended hiatus lasting nearly a decade. During the break Goodwin issued the solo album Odludek in 2014, while the Williams brothers released a Black Rivers album the next year. Renewed fan interest sparked by 2019 reunion shows soon returned the group to the studio, and eleven years after their previous release Doves issued their fifth LP, The Universal Want, in September 2020.