I’d imagine that listening to a Doves record in these United States is a completely different experience than giving their melodious Britpop a spin across the pond. For all we know, the Manchester trio has been quietly releasing some of the most grandiose, meticulously produced albums of the decade, receiving little of the fanfare that accompanies any career move made by their Satriani-jacking peers. Experiencing a Doves album in the U.S. is oddly both an intimate and epic affair. Despite the vastness of their sound, the band still manages to come off as though they’re singing directly into their listeners’ ears: whether that’s because of their relative obscurity here or their talent for crafting deeply personal songs remains to be seen. However, the sonic grandeur of their tunes is befitting of their stature in the U.K. In the land where they are bona fide arena rock stars, their apparent earnestness must be somewhat cloying, like millionaires insisting that they go through the same problems as the rest of us as they drive around in Bentleys and Lotuses. That being said, their fourth album, Kingdom of Rust, won’t convert anyone that didn’t like Doves before. For Americans, this means more stadium-sized anthems that we can identify with on a personal level, that will make us both question (and be thankful for) why they’re not any bigger on our shores. For British listeners, any backlash they may have suffered before is bound to continue.

Kingdom of Rust contains the same mix of atmospheric rockers and heartfelt ballads that has characterized each of their records. However, atmospheric rockers and heartfelt ballads happen to be the band’s greatest strengths, so there is absolutely no love lost for sticking to the proven formula. In the atmospheric rockers department, we have the pulsating opening track ‘Jetstream,’ the harmonizing electric guitar arpeggios of ‘Winter Hill,’ and the maximalist stomp and assault of ‘House of Mirrors.’ The piano-led, slow-crescendo balladry of ‘10:03′ inexplicably features an arrangement by Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers, while ‘Bird Flew Backwards’ showcases frontman Jimi Goodwin’s penchant for making sparse melodies stand out in dense production. Doves succeed in giving fans their fix of new music that sounds fresh without altering the formula so much as to alienate any of their devotees.

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