Dover - Follow The City Lights
Release Date: October 10, 2006
Label: Loli Jackson Records

Dover are from Spain, though you’d hardly know it after listening to their new album Follow The City Lights. What used to be a more traditional rock band has transformed into the sort of stylish, dance floor ready group that you’re more likely to find in Scandinavia or the United Kingdom nowadays. While this stylistic shift may ruffle some feathers with longtime fans of the band, those new to Dover will revel in the album’s giddy highs.

From start to finish, Follow The City Lights is a thrill ride of neon colors, sweeping synths, and chirpy singalongs. There isn’t a bad song to be found, though none attempt to break the pop boundaries that the band have set up for themselves. Still, leave the boundary breaking to more restless artists. Follow The City Lights is a nearly flawless pop album. Opening with the shrill yet rollicking Let Me Out, Dover catapults into their new sound immediately. Following closely behind are Do Ya and Keep On Moving, which easily continue the party. Other uptempo highlights are the frenetic Madrid and Tonight, which boasts the kind of instant pop melody that simply screams for radio. Just as successful are the more reflective tracks. Dear McCartney pulses with a gentle pop melody and You & Me forgoes the dance elements for an astonishingly catchy pop sound.

In a time where Americans need to go beyond their borders to find high quality pop music, Dover’s Follow The City Lights is a revelation. It concerns itself not with heavy issues like politics, war or identity, but instead focuses on time-honored radio traditions (i.e. love, sex, dancing). And, even though it doesn’t say much as a album, it speaks loudly and brightly, just like those city lights in the title. A-

Key Tracks: Tonight, Let Me Out, You & Me