Black For Good

Five years ago, English indie icons Doves went on “indefinite hiatus” while arguably at the peak of their powers. With their wings clipped for the foreseeable future, the trio have since spent their time working on different projects, and this month sees the release of the self-titled debut album from Black Rivers, which features the talents of twin brothers Andy and Jez Williams.

“The new album was made over a period of about a year and a half,” says drummer/vocalist Andy. “When Doves finished touring in 2010 we all went off and did different projects and the year after me and Jez drifted back together and started mucking around with music - just what we’ve always done really. After a while this idea of Black Rivers developed and it started to gather pace. We didn’t have a label, publisher or management at that time and it felt liberating. To us it sounds quite different to Doves. It feels like a fresh start.”
Adopting more of a psychedelic feel with hints of space rock peppered throughout proceedings, the record dwells on the theme of travel, immigration and searching for something better.
“As the recording process went on, the immigrant theme established itself. Sometimes when you write lyrics you don’t think about them too much. After a while we got a set of songs together and realised they were about travelling. There was also that immigrant thing of trying to get to a better place. Of leaving troubles behind and moving on to somewhere better.”
At the moment, Black Rivers has just started to tour. This time though, instead of arenas and festival slots, the Williams brothers are booked for cosier venues and Andy tells us that he feels happy rather than frustrated to be starting from scratch once more.
“It’s exciting to start again. Of course you want as many people to hear your stuff as possible and you worry about whether it’s going to reach as many people as you want, but ultimately we’re just happy to have something out there and to start over. It’s been so long. We’re both dead proud of the album and worked so hard on it. It’s kind’ve a new set up we’ve got going on and it’s definitely reinvigorated us.”
And have they heard from the similarly named Polish stoner rock band Black River since they emerged?
“No, not yet anyway,” he laughs. “I’m not looking forward to the day when it happens. They look pretty violent to me!”
This March, Irish fans get their first taste of Black Rivers when they support long-time friend Noel Gallagher for his brace of dates in Dublin and Belfast.
“I’m looking forward to the catering on that tour actually,” Andy jokes. “It’ll be very nice. You get to do your gig early doors and then have great food after. It’ll make a nice change from our own tour where we’ll probably just have a load of Gregg’s pasties. It’s nice to mix it up with our own headline dates.
“We’ve a lot of family coming to the Belfast gig. Our mum’s from Westport and we’re really excited to be playing with Noel and getting back into touring,” he adds. “It’s been a while and Dublin especially is a great place to start again. We always have a great time when we play there. I really hope we do an Irish headline tour soon. There are no plans yet, but I hope it happens. Doves played Ireland a lot and loved it.”
And speaking of Doves, it would of course be remiss of me not to ask about the status of the much-missed band. Will we ever see another album from them?
“I’m not ruling anything out but at the moment Black Rivers is what me and Jez are most excited about,” he concludes. “This is our focus and I can’t think beyond that really. Jimi’s starting his second record and there’s definitely no plans for us to do anything yet. Never say never, but it’s not going to happen for a while, I don’t think, because we just want to concentrate on Black Rivers.”