Doves’ Constellations For The Lonely is a solid rock album with decent surprises tucked into every track. While the rock drums, guitars, keyboards, and bass are certainly present, as they’re the band’s forte, unexpected combinations of synthesized and live instruments, choice moments of strings arrangements, and what sounds like one precious sitar solo allow the band to go psychedelic with their sound. Constellations For The Lonely takes on a space-like quality, expanding itself into infinite depths and dimensions.

The record begins with “Regenade,” a seemingly standard modern rock song that suddenly switches into a dense, psychedelic groove. It begins with a staticky crash, before an echoing grand piano plays the baseline hook of the piece. For a measure or two, it continues, baiting the audience into a sound that seems pretty familiar to the musical world of Doves’ previous album, The Universal Want, which also played with ambient and distortion of acoustic instruments. Then, a space-age synth pierces through with a sustained note like a laser, hinting that the song isn’t as traditional as it appears. In fact, subtle production tricks in the background elicit a trippy listening experience, as Jez Williams’ backup vocals sometimes come in slightly out-of-sync with Jimi Goodwin’s singing, unique electric guitar parts crescendo from different corners of the speaker, and the steady drum beat occasionally rolls off the score sheet to fill the space with more cymbals. It’s a good introduction to the rest of Constellations For The Lonely, as well as the band’s current sound, because it’s appetizing: those subtle hints of strangeness hook the listener in with their mysterious inclusions, assuring us that it’ll all make sense together soon.

“Cold Dreaming,” where Jez Williams takes the lead on vocals, continues on that psychedelic path, slowing the tempo down but increasing in grandiosity. An instrumental introduction that blends acoustic guitar with an electric counterpart, strings, and drums, this song oozes cool. The lyrics are also winding, flashing different images of shedding one’s former self in time for summer’s arrival. The rawness of the plucky acoustic guitar and grand piano is the standout feature of this track: even though it’s tucked into the otherwise electronic and strings-heavy soundscape, its gives “Cold Dreaming” a slightly prickly texture, continuing the theme of making rock slightly alien.

Yet, it’s not all psych rock songs using the same motif of inserting a weird instrument into an otherwise cohesive jam. Sometimes, the alien quality of the track comes from the unexpected genre switch. Songs like “In The Butterfly House” forgo the direct 70s psychedelic influences that come before it, but they still uphold a dreamlike quality by adopting a more oceanic, melodic flow. “In The Butterfly House” draws a bit from Radiohead’s art rock/experimental record In Rainbows, particularly in the way Doves’ track creates contradictory beats with the progressive drumline and the arpeggio-like plucking of the guitar, much like “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” (Only, “In The Butterfly House” includes the delightful surprise of a trippy sitar solo.) The lyrics of “In The Butterfly House” are equally escapist and borderline surreal: Goodwin draws his vocals out as if he’s speaking in slow motion, and the images of gardens, natural sanctuaries, and contained spaces to lose one’s mind that inform the lyrics leave much to personal interpretation. Likewise, “A Drop In the Ocean” ebbs and flows like the sea, and the main guitar riff takes on a refreshing, lof-fi energy—similar to something one might hear on a Mk.gee record. There are also flashes of folk in “Saint Teresa” with the apparent use of the banjo, the fiddle, the prominent acoustic guitar, and the wobbles of a theremin-sounding synth at the heart of the music (almost like an old Sufjan Stevens track), and “Stupid Schemes” adds a burst of sunniness with its relaxed drum, baroque flairs, flourishes of flutes, and acoustic guitars. These moments demonstrate that Doves isn’t afraid to try something new, to pull in new influences for their sound, and flip their routine all while maintaining their artistic identity.

In interviews, the band spoke about Constellations For The Lonely as a “dark” album, one that’s meant to be read as an uplifting record for people who experienced the world’s collapse. I see what they’re trying to get at here: while the lyrics tend to venture into this vaguer, more aphoristic tone of escaping the old world, finding one’s identity, losing one’s mind, or holding onto hope—perhaps words that will mean something more concrete to future listeners—the music feels up-to-date with contemporary indie rock. Goodwin and the Williams brothers play to their strengths with their standard, lofty modern rock compositions, but the unexpected flashes of an unfamiliar instrument, a sudden switch in pace and tone, a subtle distortion of the harmonies, and experimentation with new genres and playing styles truly give Constellations For The Lonely complexity and dimension. They entice the listener to keep digging through each song, to actively listen for more details that turn this rock record into a psychedelic dream.

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