Bomb Shelter Review

“Birds Flew Backwards”

Out here all alone feels right. It was too busy in the city, too many people, too much motion. Now it’s just the birds and the grass and the sky. The car is out of sight and the clouds look incredible. When you close your eyes you can still see the sun and the blue and the shapes. You stare up, the grass cool on the backs of your ears and the back of your neck and you smile. Calm.

Kingdom of Rust is filled with images of journeys made across gritty northern landscapes: a train traveller speeds towards his beloved in “10.03”; lovers climb “Winter Hill”; and in “Birds Flew Backwards” swallows arrive, signalling the start of summer. Such imagery seems apt for this Mancunian band whose sound has, after nine years and three successful but hardly groundbreaking albums, arrived somewhere really interesting. More confident and complex than previous Doves output, Kingdom of Rust’s guitar-driven, dance-music-influenced tracks feel intimate yet epic.