Spread Yr Wings: Doves at Manchester Academy, 26th April

So here it is. A night I’ve been waiting four years for. And yet it takes some time to realise it. On the bus: yep, quite excited, looking forward to this. Queuing to get into the Academy: uh huh, should be good. Then we step inside. It’s heaving, yet still we manage to get down towards the front with ease (why everyone neglects the left hand side of this venue I’ll never know), and the air all around is buzzing. This is huge, and already it feels quite overwhelming.

It’s now almost a decade since the release of Doves’ debut album, Lost Souls, and the third of April 2000 marked the point I first bought an album on the strength of one song – unfortunately I can’t remember which one, nor can I remember whether it was Lamacq or Peel who turned me onto it. This has become one of the most rewarding albums I’ve ever purchased, and a real love for Doves prevailed, only getting stronger upon moving to Manchester in 2004. It’s four years on from their last Manchester performance (a staggeringly beautiful set at the Apollo), and for this capacity crowd the excitement is about to reach breaking point.


Although I’ve only managed to fit in a few listens of new album Kingdom of Rust thus far, it has been perfectly clear that Jetstream would make a stunning set opener. It does, and if anything it exceeds expectations as it soars and pounds, quickening the pace of your heart. This is a track which shows how Doves have come full circle in a way, combining the raw energy of Sub Sub and the majestic, heart-wrenching beauty they’ve often employed as Doves. However, as the set progresses it becomes clear that they never left their past behind in the first place. What sounds quietly melancholic on record bristles with energy live, even on quieter tracks such as Ambition. Although the main set does not for one moment disappoint (both Pounding and Black and White Town are euphoric, new tracks like Winter Hill nestle happily against the old and already seem firm favourites), it is the encore where the band really shine.

Following reviews of earlier 2009 shows, it’s fair to say we’re likely to hear Northenden and sure enough, Jimi strides out for a semi-acoustic performance of the lovelorn, loyal paean to fucked up suburbia. Hairs on necks stand on end, the crowd is quietened. Jimi goes on to explain how he’s not happy that they’ve been referred to as a Cheshire band in the press purely because of where they recorded Kingdom of Rust: “I was born in Manchester,” he calls. “I’ll probably die in Manchester. Doves were shaped by Manchester; and the chances are you were too”. The call to arms is made complete by a powerful, triumphant rendition of Here It Comes, and not a soul is unmoved as bodies shake as one to Doves’ beat. There Goes the Fear escalates our emotions until that breaking point is finally reached. “We’ve not played here for four years. We couldn’t not do it.” That’s it. We have Space Face and in four songs Doves have proved why they are still Manchester’s most relevant band.

The photograph was taken by excellent local snapper Shirlaine Forrest. Check out here work here

Come Saturday - 2009, a list of sorts

I had a realisation earlier today, mainly due to my thoughts turning to the fact that very soon it is my birthday, which means that we are almost a third way through the year. I can still remember the mixture of pain and excitement of New Years Day, and to be fair 2009 has not disappointed. I have been to see some amazing gigs, and there have been some excellent records released this year. So, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about my three favourite LPs of the year thus far.

 

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (Fortuna Pop)

Without a doubt this is the best album I have bought this year. I am so so happy that there is a band around making music that realises exactly how I feel at the moment. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart  write upbeat popsongs about awkward sexuality. This record sounds like it should have been released in 1991, as a companion to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Is it shoegaze for pop kids, or pop for shoegaze kids?

 

When I first heard about this band I spent hours watching rough videos of them playing shows, and I felt utterly inspired. This band were always going to mean the world to me, and they fucking do. This record feels like it has everything, the construction of the songs is amazing, from the little Korg organ underpinning the majority of it to the simple yet unashamed poetry in the lyrics. To anyone who listens to the band and thinks ‘oh yeah, it’s all very nice and stuff’ I would compel you to actually listen properly to the lyrics next time. This Love Is Fucking Right! could well be the best popsong ever written about incest, hardly lemonade and cupcakes territory.

It is also such a well crafted record in that both Contender and Stay Alive / Everything With You ease you into each side, in a similar way to a pretty girl smiling at you across the table in the library before you tear off into a gin soaked binge during Come Saturday and A Teenager In Love.  Speaking of Come Saturday, make sure you request it next time you are at a popdisco, it will not disappoint. That song somehow captures all the visceral releases that a twentysomething year old really needs on a Saturday night, and at once captures and dispenses with all yr hang-ups.

 

Sky Larkin – The Golden Spike (Wichita)

Sky Larkin are a band who I have been in love with for a number of years now, they were one of a clutch of bands including Los Campesinos! and The Answering Machine who I became aware of in the summer of 2006 and I am glad to say that all three bands inspire the same amount of excitement in me now as they did back then. To see Sky Larkin not only release this record, but to release it on a label as important as Wichita made me massively happy. Then of course there is the fact that it is a brilliant LP, full of the pop songs which are always in danger of boiling over a little bit that charmed me in the first place.

 

If anything, this record is pitched somewhere between the rawcous cacophony of Los Camp and the artpop of TAM, which is a great thing. Opening with Fossil, I the band lay down a statement of intent – this is a record which is going to make you listen. It also tells you all that you need to know about the band, they write glorious songs which sound a little like what Sugarcubes may have if they had been informed by Pavement when they were growing up.

Somersault stands out as a track which only Sky Larkin could write, which is a very impressive thing in an age when most ‘popular’ music appears to be based around borrowing all that you can from anyone you can see and repackaging it as your own. The visceral drumming, humming bass, slightly uneasy waltzer-esque keys and unmistakable layering of vocals produce a song which gets better with each listen. Similarly, I am quite happy to declare Matador as one of, if not my number one song of 2009 thus far. The slowly winding guitar which underpins the whole song draws you right in, as the rest of the elements slowly fuse into your head. Then it all kind of disappears, just, for the chorus which pangs as much of indie triumphalism as it does Death In The Afternoon.

 

Titus Andronicus – The Airing of Grievances (XL)

Before I start, yes I do know that this was released last year in the States. To anyone who bought it on import first time round, I really do envy you. I can remember the feeling of listening to the first Clap Your Hands Say Yeah record before most people over here had cottoned onto it, and feeling like I was privileged to be listening to it, and you must feel the same with this.

 

For quite a while Titus Andronicus had been one of those bands who I had meant to listen to, as I knew full well that they would be amazing, but it took me about three months to actually do it. Then I bought their single version of Albert Camus, and realised that I need to listen to more of this band. Imagine a combination of The Pouges, iLiKETRAiNS, Conor Oburst and Arcade Fire. Got it? Well you are still probably about a mile away from realising the amount of pure energy which pulses through this record.

 

I love the fact that opening track Fear and Loathing inMahwah, NJ will have people turning it up through the opening section as they can’t hear the lyrics, and then just as they have the level right and almighty ‘FUCK YOU’ rings out as the band launch into the kind of break neck noise which punctuates this record. There are quotes from Shakespeare and Camus, rawkous noise and shredded vocal chords. This album actually does that rare thing of capturing the feeling of a band’s live show perfectly on vinyl, which is an even more impressive feat given  the nature of Titus Andronicus’ heartstopping performances.

For me though, this LP comes into life properly on Side B. Don’t get me wrong, I think the first 5 songs are brilliant, but as with the Bard’s best plays, the real action comes in the later acts. Titus Andronicus is a call to arms, a damning assault on the music industry which has spat out/at bands like this countless times. Here is a band inspiring you, by passing on the words ‘your life is over. I insist you cease to exist. Die. Your Life Is Over.’ It is almost as if they have accepted all that is wrong with the world, and decided that the only way to make the world passable is make a fuckload of noise, because there is nothing else to do. Probably a fair mantra.

If you feel inspired to buy these records then head here