Cue the Doves are either going to blow up like Motion City Soundtrack after months on the road drinking lager, or they are going to become staid, dull and forgettable, playing The Garage until their kids are old enough to stand outside the Burnsville venue flirting and smoking.
Why?
Because they have hot girls on their MySpace page.
But everybody knows that hot girls on your MySpace page can be a blessing or a curse.
Their press release sees it as a blessing, boasting that one of the band's key selling points is their "over 12,000 MySpace 'friends.'" Thanks can largely be given to guitarist and vocalist Jon Berndtson and his previous band, The Beautiful Mistake. Moving back to Minneapolis after playing bass with TBM, Berndtson brought along the fans and the press. Signed to the St. Paul based Dead Letter Records, the band has a lot going for it in terms of name recognition (simply based on the fact that they are part of the post-hardcore scene; one of the most terribly fanatic and incestuous music scenes if I've ever seen one).
But the scene hasn't been kind to Berndtson's new band, Cue the Doves. Reviews have focused on the disconnect between the band's post-hardcore space-rock and Berndtson's soaring vocals, which literally fly on their own plain, avoiding rhythm at any chance. Lyrically, "Architectures of the Atmosphere" sees Berndtson throwing aside TBM's emo lyrical trappings for a wholly different trapping: the concept album. Interspersed throughout the album are badly sampled science-fiction film clips attempting to tie the album together under a common theme. Props for attempting something interesting, minus one for not pulling it off, though.
The samples do help to break up the monotonous production. "Course One: The Abductions" is the closest the band comes to writing a memorable guitar and vocal hook. It is one of the few moments on the album where the guitar and vocal melodies converge to form something close to singable. Keyword: close. The final coda of the song is wince-worthy, with Berndtson singing "We are not alone!" with all the emotion that accompanies a sibling burial.
Now, if only Berndtson can transfer all that emotion and MySpace love into some hook-laden songs that don't deal entirely with anal probes.
www.cuethedoves.com
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