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Aug 27, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Doves

Manchester-based trio Doves are releasing their long-awaited fifth album, The Universal Want, out September 11 on Imperial. It’s their first album in 11 years and now they have shared the album’s third single, “Cathedrals of the Mind,” via a trippy video for it. It’s a mid-tempo track that takes some interesting twists and turns in its five-minute running time. Doves cite Talk Talk and David Bowie as influences on the song and also say that Bowie’s death inspired the song. David Kitson directed the video. Listen and watch below.

The band’s Jez Williams (who handles guitars, backing vocals, and programming on the song) had this to say in a press release: “The song stems from a single hook, which developed to evoke this expansive internal monologue, this never-ending chasm of thought. Subconsciously, through words thrown against it and made to fit, it came to be about someone always being on your mind. The listener can form their own ideas. For me, it was about the loss of Bowie.”

Frontman Jimi Goodwin had this to say: “It’s a prayer to sonics. We still love production and sonic detail. The album more than meets our expectations and, for once, we were unanimous in the track listing. We’re ready to let the whole world in and then gently close the doors. We’ll leave the listener to work out what we meant by it all.”

In June the band shared the album’s first single, “Carousels,” which was their first new song in 11 years. “Carousels” made it to #1 on our Songs of the Week list. When the album was announced they shared its second single, “Prisoners,” via a music video for it. “Prisoners” was #2 on our Songs of the Week list. Then they shared a remix of “Carousels” done by The Comet Is Coming, the London based Nu Jazz trio. Then Doves shared the sheet music and lyrics from the album’s closing track, “Forest House,” with the intention that fans and other musicians alike would try and play the song and then post it online using #doveleaks.

Doves’ last album was 2009’s Kingdom of Rust, which was their fourth. The band went on an “indefinite pause” in 2010, but announced their reunion in 2018 and played their first reunion show in March 2019, to benefit Teenage Cancer Trust. Other live shows followed, along with promises of new music.

Of the album as a whole, Jez Williams had this to say: “It’s definitely got the stamp of ‘the time’ all over it. Everything on the album is an echo. It’s an echo of what we were going through at the time. Getting back together, the Royal Albert Hall and everything else.”

The album’s artwork is by London-based, Finnish photographer, Maria Lax. Goodwin was taken by her 2020 photobook, Some Kind of Heavenly Fire, and gifted a copy to each of his bandmates. The press release says the book “set evocative images alongside memorabilia relating to a moment in time when hardship, industrialization and UFO sightings disturbed the peace of her isolated hometown in Northern Finland.”

Doves have released four albums: 2000’s Lost Souls, 2002’s The Last Broadcast, 2005’s Some Cities, and 2009’s Kingdom of Rust. Since their hiatus, frontman Jimi Goodwin released a solo album, Odludek, in 2014. That same year, Doves’ other two members, brothers Jez and Andy Williams, formed the new band Black Rivers (they released their debut album in 2015).

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