Doves

Some Cities navigates its way around the pavement, keeping its head focused on observing life here on earth, which is a bit of a departure from the group's astral travels of yore. But the soulful Brits can still knock out a tune, as evidenced by the entrancing, starlit "Almost Forgot Myself."

A chart-topper in their native England, Doves' latest record brightens up the widescreen
gloom of their 2000 debut, Lost Souls, dishing out hopeful, multitracked choruses and liquid
guitars. Some Cities is less self-consciously arty than Souls, though the murky atmospherics
and nondistinct Brit voices here will likely confine the album to the nether regions of
America's Top 100. But delicately rocking tunes such as "Black and White Town"... More >

Battling banal balefulness, they cop from "Heat Wave" and warm up ("Black and White Town," "Some Cities"). (Grade - *)