Lost Souls is the debut studio album by British indie rock band Doves, released by Heavenly Recordings on 3 April 2000.

The album was roundly praised on its release for its blending of claustrophobic intensity and euphoria, the sonic influences from electronic music present in its textures and for being "the perfect after-hours soundtrack.

"[5] In the early 1990s, Jimi Goodwin and twin brothers Jez and Andy Williams were producing dance music as Sub Sub.

We'd always been in love with the idea of albums as opposed to just singles – which are cool in their way and suit dance music perfectly but we wanted to stretch ourselves and make a statement with a set of songs.

We were for all intent and purposes still Sub Sub (we only called ourselves Doves a week or two before The Cedar Room was released, because we wanted a fresh start and a break from the past).

The bulk of what would become Lost Souls was recorded there; said Andy Williams, "We really did lock ourselves away for three to four years until we discovered how we wanted to sound, it was a pretty oppressive place with no windows and thieves trying to break in!

I also remember finding Stephen Morris' Rogers drum kit that he used in Joy Division stuffed behind some knackered flight case.

[11][12] During the album recording sessions, the band were facing the prospect of finding a lead singer, but found themselves more than satisfied with bassist Jimi Goodwin's vocals: "I think the key songs for us on Lost Souls were 'The Cedar Room' and 'Break Me Gently', because they were the first songs Jimi sang properly and we realised we needn't go looking outside the band for this 'mythical singer', something our friend and label boss Rob Gretton had been telling us for years," said Andy Williams.

In late 1998, Doves joined Manchester-based musician Badly Drawn Boy as his backing band; their first release together was the single "Road Movie" in January 1999, recorded live in the studio.

[14] Doves also performed on several songs on Badly Drawn Boy's debut album The Hour of Bewilderbeast, as well as accompanied him on tour dates.

[15] A little more than a week before the EP's release, the band's mentor and friend Rob Gretton died of a heart attack.

Andy Williams concluded of Lost Souls that, "The best thing was that after all the years of hard work and very testing times we knew we were finally creating the sort of music we had always wanted to ..."[8] The band also dedicated Lost Souls to their late friend and mentor Rob Gretton.

With their background in dance and house music, the band incorporated a variety of samples on Lost Souls: "A House" features the sounds of a fire burning, "Lost Souls" features funhouse music, "Break Me Gently" interpolates a sample of a telephone recording that originally appeared on hip hop group 3rd Bass's 1989 album The Cactus Album,[20] and "Sea Song" features a spoken-word dialogue extract from the 1984 Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas.

In a 2009 review, BBC praised the album, and described the album as a rock record that kept the dance spirit alive, but could also appeal to a pop audience: "Lost Souls was a record that was widely discussed, and people wondered aloud whether its success marked the end of another era of dance music.

But because the simmering emotion on songs like 'The Cedar Room' was expressed through guitars rather than synths, in no way did that mean that Doves were taking dance music out the back and burying it in a shallow grave.

"[33] Q called the album "heavy, sombre and lugubrious ... it makes for seriously claustrophobic listening, until it takes a great gulp of euphoria.

"[26] In a mixed review, Pitchfork reviewer Sam Eccleston took a "straightforward" and "cynical" approach with the album and rated it 6.8 out of 10, saying, "Tonally, Lost Souls reflects the after-after-midnight hours, as if the boys felt the need to document the hung-over and blissed-out aftermath of the dancing-hours frenzy their Sub Sub days offered listeners years ago."

[35] Manchester icon and Doves influence Johnny Marr called the album "a vast 3am melancholic beauty brought to life.

[36] The photography was done by another frequent Doves collaborator, Richard Mulhearn, and the boxer featured in the photos is Sean McHale of the Ardwick Lads Boxing Club.

[37] In April 2020, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the release of Lost Souls, Rick Myers posted the original photo montage that comprises the album cover to social media and the official Doves Music Blog.