Despite appearances and a back catalogue suggesting otherwise, Doves are a nimble, hard and funky band. Live, they frequently encore with the monstrous, dance/rock end of the world rave up Space Face/Crunch dating back to their Sub Sub days. Makes sense really. The band not only hails from Manchester but they also met at the iconic Hacienda nightclub in the ‘80s, which at the time was the hedonistic centre of the music universe. Years passed by and the band reinvented as maudlin alt-rockers mirroring the prevailing mood in Britain – all millennial anxieties and jaw-gnashing post Brit-pop comedown. Through it all, there was something more to Doves. Songs laden with inverting arpeggios one minute would disappear quietly the next
only to reappear as crunchy, arena thumpers. On Kingdom of Rust the band has struck a fine balance between history and forward momentum. House of Mirrors and Winter Hill are instant Doves classics, but it’s the white boy funk of Compulsion and skronk-dub of 10:03 that you finally hear a band letting all the elements fall emphatically, gloriously into place.

A slab of five homegrown hits on disc two saves this compilation from becoming more tragic ‘80s party fodder. Nick and those seedy lads lead a procession of iconic Aussie tracks (The Church, The Triffids, The Go-Betweens, The Saints) to ease that familiar ‘I want to laugh but I just can’t handle any more synth!’  tension that any ‘80s album induces. There are a few rebel fighters like Bowie and De La Soul, but regretfullythe dark side (led by Salt-n-Pepa and Olivia Newton-John) overcome with their continual crimes against sound. The sad thing is, Rage actually chose a representative sample of said decade, so if you’ve had
an operation to adjust your drum-machine tolerance to Bananarama, pick up a copy. I’d suggest the DVD – attack of the padded shoulders!

Four years in the making, Karnivool’s new album will be one hell of a surprise for heavy metal fans and sate the appetite for those hungry for more ‘Vool. The first half is the usual mix of viciously angry mosh and dark emotional ballads set to earblowing acoustics. But it’s from track eight onwards that the CD starts going crazy like the MC Escher staircase at Hogwarts. The Cardinal Lure starts like The Phantom of the Opera on acid. Deadman combines Ian Kenny’s melodies with some smashing ear-splitting riffs. The highlight for ‘Vool fans has to be the remix of Change.