A debut album is, surely, the one place to cram in every attention-grabbing trick in the book. Not for Doves, though, who presumably consider such behaviour crassly boorish, preferring instead to set all levels resolutely on low. Their echoey acoustic psych-folk is skillfully inflected with variety - Here It Comes is borne from the smokiest of '50s Soho cellars; Melody Calls recalls the tainted strumming of The Go-Betweens - but each track is linked by a seeming desire to slink by unnoticed. The delicate promise of their songwriting is evident enough but soaring drama is conspicuously absent.

Track List:
1. Firesuite
2. Here It Comes
3. Break Me Gently
4. Sea Song
5. Rise
6. Lost Souls
7. Melody Calls
8. Catch The Sun
9. Man Who Told Everything
10. Cedar Room
11. Reprise
12. House

To hear a RealAudio clip,
click on a highlighted track above.

April 2000

Steve Lowe