CD: HVNLP35CD
RELEASE DATE: 2002
LABEL: Heavenly

01. Intro
02. Words
03. There Goes The Fear
04. M62 Song
05. Where We're Calling From
06. N.Y.
07. Satellites
08. Friday's Dust
09. Pounding
10. Last Broadcast
11. The Sulphur Man
12. Caught By The River

Surpassing the merits of their previous album "Lost Souls", one of the best albums of 2000, is no mean feat, but to do it in such breath-taking fashion is something else, something special. It's a more musically diverse album than their last one, but it also has Doves further defining their own original sound. You know a new band knows what it's doing when, two albums in, they already have their own clearly defined sound. The band has said they don't want to be compared to U2, but the guitar solo in "Pounding" totally smacks of something The Edge would do. If hearing "Pounding" feels like being shout out of a cannon, then listening to "The Last Broadcast" is like swirling like a leaf in a fall breeze. "Friday's Dust" is a dark, yet warm, atmospheric acoustic song (with the coolest bass clarinet accompaniment since Bitches Brew), while "The Sulphur Man" borrows its melodies from The Smiths. The magnificent "Caught By the River", with its stirring chorus of "You give it all away / Don't let it come apart", closes the album in grand fashion, climaxing in a loud, Oasis-like, ecstatic cacophony of layered acoustic and electric guitars. An album like this makes you realize the foolishness in Radiohead's attempts at deconstructing their own sound, avoiding the Big Rock cliches. There's nothing criminal in playing huge-sounding, uplifting songs when they're done creatively, and Doves nail it perfectly on The Last Broadcast.