Four years after their last release, Britpop outfit Doves revisit familiar territory with a renewed sense of urgency on Kingdom of Rust. Coldplay-esque grandiosity paired with New Order electronics remains the standard fare on the album. “Jetstream stormy seas/ Cast adrift on a troubled dream,” lead crooner Jimi Goodwin sings somberly on the album’s opening track, “Jetstream,” a prescient bit of foreshadowing for an album as unabashedly melodramatic as this one.
On the album’s first single, “Kingdom of Rust,” Doves give anthemic pomp to the atmospheric, New Wave effects with fast-paced, choppy drums and blistering guitars. Pre-“Viva la Vida,” Chris Martin might have listened intently and then exclaimed, “I gotta snag this!”
Therein lies the rub. Just like Coldplay’s Martin, lead singer Jimi Goodwin fails to match the passion of the accompanying instrumentation. Blaring musical pomposity gets old pretty quickly when arranged in the same formulaic ways and paired with now-cliché crooning. Doves’ music has its own ecstatic moments, full of rich instrumentation and melody. Yet they leave the listener waiting for that moment of blissful transcendence, of discovery of the new—something that we can attach ourselves to. Unfortunately, that moment never comes.
