It looked for a moment like the Doves were bound to be remembered 'round these parts as the band that got upstaged by The Strokes after inviting the trendy New York City upstarts to open for them last year.

Well, not so. With The Last Broadcast, the Manchester trio reassert themselves as one of the era's most complex and forward-looking rock bands.

The new disc doesn't merely sustain the dream state of the Doves' 2000 CD Lost Souls. Rather, it blows things out to a scale that would border on surreal if it wasn't shaped around the band's exquisite song sense. So at ease in the studio it might as well be an extension of their brains, Jimi Goodwin and brothers Jez and Andy Williams build from filmic samples and electronics into soaring chime-pop, as on the pull-you-in-by-the-temples opener Words. Lead single There Goes The Fear, a surprise Top 10 hit in the U.K., basically nicks the guitar line from Radiohead's No Surprises for a looming and rather merry folk-rock anthem.

The Last Broadcast gets deeper -- or higher, depending on perspective. Goodwin's velvet croon provides equal measures of ease and anxiety without coming off pompous. The group can flip between blistering guitar and swaying piano-pop in a single song (N.Y.), or navigate dizzy symphonics (Friday's Dust, The Sulphur Man), urgent power-pop (Pounding), soul stomp (Satellites) and glowing acoustic numbers (M62 Song, Caught By The River) -- with transitions smoothed out by occasional interludes.

Truly a band for all seasons. Massive. (More on Doves)

Track Listing