Making atmospheric guitar music with a clear familiarity with dance, it makes sense that The Invisible should be supporting Doves. It's slightly lighter and funkier genres that inform them, resulting in a sound that at its best recalls the cruelly overlooked Grand National. The deep bass squelch and happy bounce of "London Girl" in particular gets very warmly welcomed. At times, though, the lack of a commanding voice means less punchy material drifts out without connecting; there's some potential there nonetheless.
Doves themselves don't exactly have the world's greatest live vocalists at their command, though all three take to the mic by the end of the show. Jez is able to carry the likes of "Jetstream" and "Words" off no worse than on record, but Jimi is more variable. Frequently rearing back from the mic with each word as if overpowered by what he was singing, he suits the likes of "Rise" and "Snowden", with their brooding, beyond-words emotions and heavy musical weight, really well but elsewhere sometimes sounded curiously distant. "Caught by the River" resultantly becomes an odd choice of old song to bring out for the end of the main set.
Said set is mainly drawn from the new album Kingdom of Rust and (narrowly my favourite) The Last Broadcast. The best sequence is the pairing of the title tracks of each, both powerfully immediate and played with country jangle to the fore, forging a link between the two that wouldn't wotherwise be apparent. Those aside, a punchy "Black and White Town" and "Pounding" are highlights. My opinion on much of the rest of the new material (slight improvement on the last album, too lumpen to really recapture past glories) sadly doesn't get changed much, but the general reaction to the new stuff suggests plenty are a lot more won over.
The real treats for longstanding fans unsurprisingly come in the encore, beginning with a gorgeous acoustic rendition of B-side "Northenden" that melts away the distance between band and audience and brings to mind those pesky Elbow comparisons for the only time of the night. There's some position-swapping for "Here it Comes" and then the joyous, triumphant finale of "There Goes the Fear" and "Space Face".
.
1 comment:
An outstanding gig - the best I have ever been to (and I am not short of gig experience, but then I did have a few pints by the time they came on). Third time seeing Doves, and they just get better and better, although Last Broadcast is the best album in my humble opinion, they rise and irse in my estimation as musicians and live performers. The Academy is a fantastic venue too, much better than stadiums, arenas etc etc.
Post a Comment