The Dovelles

You would do anything to be with the kind of women that you think you hear in the songs of The Dovelles. You would do anything just to feel like they loved you just a little bit because their little drop of love is so concentrated that it's one of the most potent drops of anything that you're ever likely to come into contact with. Sure, Alyssandra Nighswonger, Jenny Stockdale, Mary McKeever and Tess Shapiro are brown-haired lovelies, but oddly enough, this has nothing to do with how the songs by the band that's mostly based in Long Beach, California, make you feel.

With a classic country and AM radio vibe, The Dovelles write songs that are about the goodness in love. The songs are about how miraculous it can be to have sought and discovered another person to love so truly. The women in these songs are loyal and capable of SO much love. They are caring and articulate. They make you stutter and shiver whether they're in stockings and a skirt or a pair of raggedy sweats. They will hold you in an embrace and make sure that you feel that it's them on the other side of it - that it's all of them. They will always kiss with their eyes closed and they will take any leap that you want to take with them. They are sure to cherish you the way that anyone should want. All they ask in return is that you cherish them just as much - an arrangement that seems more than fair on paper, or even in conversation.

It's knowing how frequently women this good are let down, that makes these stunning and spare songs of love and some hard times, so damned beautiful. They're pretty in the ways that they shouldn't be. There's not much to them and yet, the sentiment is deep and love that they sing of -- before it is dug up and shredded, is pure. An ocean, to them, is just one big salty tear, but it's also the place they could see themselves on a pretty and clear afternoon, bobbing in the warm water and forgetting that any tears have ever been shed over love.