Doves Put ‘Stamp of Time’ on New Album

Indie rockers Doves recently released their first new music in 11 years with the new track “Carousels.”

Now, the band has announced that its fifth studio album, The Universal Want, will arrive on Sept. 11 through Imperial Records in the U.S., and the group has just issued the album’s first single, “Prisoners.”
 
“Prisoners” is an “unstoppable, driving tale of caution in a world of unending desire.”

Produced by Doves with Dan Austin and recorded at the band’s own Frank Bough Sound III studios in North West England, the high heat of its Northern Soul beat is fanned by “wiry guitar breaks and cuts of ethereal noise contorting beneath layers of stacked vocals.”

“It’s about continually chasing something and not being satisfied when you eventually get it,” says singer-drummer Andy Williams in a press release.

You’ve got ‘that thing’ and you find you’re not any happier. Be careful what you wish for.

Dropping breadcrumbs in rare interviews since they announced their return in late 2018, Williams, singer-bassist Jimi Goodwin and singer-guitarist Jez Williams have remained “reluctant custodians” of their barely-kept secret of a new album throughout last year’s memorable festival and outdoor headline shows.

Coming together to confirm themselves, once again, as an artistic unit for the first time since sessions ended on 2009’s Kingdom of Rust, the Manchester trio says that The Universal Want has become an “equally poignant and celebratory document of both time passed and time recouped.”

“It’s definitely got the stamp of ‘the time’ all over it,” says Jez Williams when asked as to what lies ahead for fans who have waited patiently for over a decade for another record. “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.”

Photo by Jon Shard