Corporate line:
The Verve are back with their fourth release after separating and reuniting.

The great:
“Sit and Wonder” – Meandering through a song that has many pieces and at the same time still keeps your attention from the beginning to the end. “I’ve been having trouble tonight Lord/ I’ve been having demons in my mind Lord/ Some things going on inside my head Lord.” This is seven minutes of bliss. It’s no “Bittersweet Symphony” but it wasn’t intended to be.

“Valium Skies” – At first this song didn’t grab me and then all of the sudden it was the one track that I kept playing and singing and then it spiraled of control to the point of memorizing every word. Richard Ashcroft showcases his brilliant ability of stretching syllables into sustained beauty.

“Rather Be” – In the sweet spot of the album comes one of my favorite songs. The melody is gorgeous is another Verve meets the Rolling Stones flavors to it. “Sometimes life seems to tear us apart/ And I don’t wanna let you go/ Sometimes these feelings hidden /I start to cry ’cause I won’t ever let you go.”

“Love is Noise” – This is the closest the Verve get on this album to a hit single. It’s not a forced song simply to be a pop-rock hit. It has soul unlike most rock songs these days: “Will those feet in modern times/walk on soles that are made in China?” This is the surprise song of the entire album and at first it didn’t seem like a great song and then after a few listens it started to have a U2-epic feel to it.

“Judas” – Such an amazingly light and heavenly song that floats high above the clouds featured on the album cover. As always the lyrics paint a wonderful picture while the music lays a beautiful tapestry for it to live.

“I See Houses” – The lyrics may not be as good as it’s predecessors and yet the chorus absolutely grabs me and never escapes my mind no matter how hard I try: “I get this feeling that I’ve been here before /How many lives will I waste/ How many tears must I taste before my freedom.”

The good:
“Numbness” – The song takes a long time to get to the pay off as Ashcroft makes his siren call “love is on my brain.”
“Columbo”
“Appalachian Springs”

The rest:
“Noise Epic” – This is the only miss. The spoken word style that Ashcroft incorporates destroys the song even though the chorus isn’t half bad–that is if the words would have sounded more fleshed out. It sounds like Ashcroft is making it up as he goes along.

Finally:
“Urban Hymns” is one of the best albums released in the last ten years and many of these songs would fit comfortably on that album. That’s not the sign of a band who has lost their touch rather a band who are still one of the best in the world. It seems Richard Ashcroft has spent the last two solo albums trying to recreate the hit “Bittersweet Symphony” and has finally come to the realization that it isn’t him. Ashcroft finally feels at home again with his gang of merry musical marauders and the absolutely brilliant “Forth.”

Watch the video for “Love is Noise”

The Verve have given us three fantastic albums – including Urban Hymns, the fifth fastest selling British album ever on release, reaching platinum status in the States, and one of the landmark releases of the Nineties. They play “music of the spheres,” which strives to break out of the stratosphere and yet is laced with a brutally down-to-earth, gritty realism that understands the hopes and fears of their world-wide audience but challenges them to accompany the band on a quest for something greater. When the words of Bitter Sweet Symphony power out across a venue, the words “It’s a bitter sweet symphony, this life, you’re a slave for money, then you die” are transformed from what should be a depressing statement into an uplifting cry of celebration and of seizing the moment, something the Verve can never be accused of failing to do themselves. As the cover of 1995 single History spelled out, the Verve’s manifesto is “Life is not a rehearsal.” Individually and collectively, they challenge themselves and their enormous audience to get the most out of it we can, and live for the instant.

Something happens when the Verve are together that none of them experience when they are apart. Individually, the Verve are all highly-accomplished players. Singer Richard Ashcroft has been called “the greatest singer in the world” by no less a peer than Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Liverpool-born Simon Jones’s dub-informed bass takes the Verve’s music far beyond rock and into space and dub; Peter Salisbury plays drums more like a jazz great than a conventional rock drummer and when the tag “guitarist of his generation” is thrown about it often lands at the feet of the hugely adventurous, psychedelic, exploratory Nick McCabe. However, when they are together a chemistry takes hold that transcends the four people onstage to blast the Verve somewhere else entirely and this chemistry and spontaneity has survived an absence of almost a decade. Already, since their typically unpredictable 2007 reunion, live shows have been running the gauntlet of everything from material so new that Ashcroft has been singing the words from scraps of paper to long-lost, hazy B-sides like Let The Damage Begin and A Man Called Sun, amid all manner of musical fireworks. When they take the stage, literally anything can happen.

After an absence of almost a decade, these songs are again being played, as they should be – by the Verve themselves. The individual members have not been slouches. Richard Ashcroft has enjoyed a successful and prolific solo career. Simon Jones formed a band, the Shining, who were not altogether dissimilar to the Verve, and has played with Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz. Nick McCabe has been remixing and playing with everyone from the Beta Band to John Martyn while Peter Salisbury has been playing with Ashcroft, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and has further diverted his musical obsessions into running a Stockport drum shop. However, all seem to have realized what their enormous fanbase has been telling them all along. That today, as much if not more than ever, music really needs the Verve.

However, a band like the Verve would never settle for easy nostalgia. Even before they’d set out on their initial comeback gigs last year, which sold out within an astonishing 20 minutes, they made public (via the NME website) the results of their very first jam session as a reformed band. The Thaw Sessions comprised 14 wondrous minutes of music, which signified their ability to spark off one another remained undimmed. Soon afterwards, the band debuted new song Sit And Wonder – a tune trimmed from a 25-minute jam, just as they would in the early days, a taste of things to come. Those comeback dates proved so successful and were so enthusiastically received that the band immediately embarked on a full-scale tour of arenas in December of 2007, playing bigger gigs in many cases than the first time around. In 2008, they look set to up the ante even further, by appearing at many of the major festivals and, in a turnaround that would have seemed unthinkable even a year ago, releasing their enormously-anticipated fourth album. The results will certainly be worth the wait. – Dave Simpson.

The Verve have given us three fantastic albums – including Urban Hymns, the fifth fastest selling British album ever on release, reaching platinum status in the States, and one of the landmark releases of the Nineties. They play “music of the spheres,” which strives to break out of the stratosphere and yet is laced with a brutally down-to-earth, gritty realism that understands the hopes and fears of their world-wide audience but challenges them to accompany the band on a quest for something greater. When the words of Bitter Sweet Symphony power out across a venue, the words “It’s a bitter sweet symphony, this life, you’re a slave for money, then you die” are transformed from what should be a depressing statement into an uplifting cry of celebration and of seizing the moment, something the Verve can never be accused of failing to do themselves. As the cover of 1995 single History spelled out, the Verve’s manifesto is “Life is not a rehearsal.” Individually and collectively, they challenge themselves and their enormous audience to get the most out of it we can, and live for the instant.

Something happens when the Verve are together that none of them experience when they are apart. Individually, the Verve are all highly-accomplished players. Singer Richard Ashcroft has been called “the greatest singer in the world” by no less a peer than Coldplay’s Chris Martin. Liverpool-born Simon Jones’s dub-informed bass takes the Verve’s music far beyond rock and into space and dub; Peter Salisbury plays drums more like a jazz great than a conventional rock drummer and when the tag “guitarist of his generation” is thrown about it often lands at the feet of the hugely adventurous, psychedelic, exploratory Nick McCabe. However, when they are together a chemistry takes hold that transcends the four people onstage to blast the Verve somewhere else entirely and this chemistry and spontaneity has survived an absence of almost a decade. Already, since their typically unpredictable 2007 reunion, live shows have been running the gauntlet of everything from material so new that Ashcroft has been singing the words from scraps of paper to long-lost, hazy B-sides like Let The Damage Begin and A Man Called Sun, amid all manner of musical fireworks. When they take the stage, literally anything can happen.

After an absence of almost a decade, these songs are again being played, as they should be – by the Verve themselves. The individual members have not been slouches. Richard Ashcroft has enjoyed a successful and prolific solo career. Simon Jones formed a band, the Shining, who were not altogether dissimilar to the Verve, and has played with Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz. Nick McCabe has been remixing and playing with everyone from the Beta Band to John Martyn while Peter Salisbury has been playing with Ashcroft, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and has further diverted his musical obsessions into running a Stockport drum shop. However, all seem to have realized what their enormous fanbase has been telling them all along. That today, as much if not more than ever, music really needs the Verve.

However, a band like the Verve would never settle for easy nostalgia. Even before they’d set out on their initial comeback gigs last year, which sold out within an astonishing 20 minutes, they made public (via the NME website) the results of their very first jam session as a reformed band. The Thaw Sessions comprised 14 wondrous minutes of music, which signified their ability to spark off one another remained undimmed. Soon afterwards, the band debuted new song Sit And Wonder – a tune trimmed from a 25-minute jam, just as they would in the early days, a taste of things to come. Those comeback dates proved so successful and were so enthusiastically received that the band immediately embarked on a full-scale tour of arenas in December of 2007, playing bigger gigs in many cases than the first time around. In 2008, they look set to up the ante even further, by appearing at many of the major festivals and, in a turnaround that would have seemed unthinkable even a year ago, releasing their enormously-anticipated fourth album. The results will certainly be worth the wait.

THE VERVE – FORTH – TRACKLISTING

1. Sit And Wonder
2. Love Is Noise
3. Rather Be
4. Judas
5. Numbness
6. I See Houses
7. Noise Epic
8. Valium Skies
9. Columbo
10. Appalachian Springs