September 2008 Archive |
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The Verve
Forth
By Brian Baker
George Carlin’s routine about how he became a lapsed Catholic and the questions that he and his friends would concoct about the mysteries of faith in order to befuddle and challenge their priests contained this brilliant shard of logic: “Can God make a rock so big that He himself can’t lift it?” In many ways, that’s exactly what happened to the Verve over the course of their brief but massive run in the early ’90s. The almost unreasonably successful “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was as ubiquitous as bus bench advertising in 1992, and on a good many alternative radio playlists it remains so to this day. And while subsequent singles and albums didn’t quite ring the register like “Symphony” and Urban Hymns (which remains the fifth fastest selling album of all time in England), the long shadow cast by the Verve between those two releases overwhelmed the band until they called it a day after just three albums.
Frontman Richard Ashcroft had some success with his solo career — as did the rest of the band with various projects — and yet the Verve’s earliest profile still looms large over the band’s reunion and first new album in 11 years. The album’s first single, “Love Is Noise,” lives up to part of its title; the song’s pleasant enough melody pulses along over a musical effect that approximates an English ambulance recorded on a wobbly tape reel and treated by Brian Eno. The track likely got the nod as the single by virtue of its brevity since, at 5:29, it is Forth’s shortest tune. It is also its least representative, as the Verve applies a psychedelic tint to a good deal of the album, particularly the reverbed pop of “Judas,” and the soulful atmospherics of “Numbness.” While Urban Hymns’ sales records are likely safe, and “Bitter Sweet Symphony” trumps “Love is Noise” handily, the jammy and ephemeral Forth is still a worthy addition to the Verve’s small but potent catalog.
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