Doves (Capitol)
You can sense it when the opening track turns out to be an eerie 90-second, slow-burning synthesizer riff: Oh dear, you've wandered into one of those Epic British Albums. Symptoms that you have EBA (see also the works of Oasis and the Verve) include swelling (to the size of seven-minute opuses), trembling (what happens when instruments feverishly pile atop each other to build shaky sonic towers in the sky) and catatonia (those trance-inducing, U2-style big-guitar riffs).
Then there are those truisms in the lyrics: "Follow your own path," "You turn around and life's passed you by" and "Seize the time/'Cause it's now or never, baby." Ignore the words, though, and those chiming guitars are irresistibly tuneful. If the Doves turn down the ponderousness a notch, they could be a worthy successor to the best band to come out of their Manchester hometown, the late-'80s melody-makers the Stone Roses.
Bottom Line: A little too soaring
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