The Verve

The Verve, then titled simply Verve, emerged in 1992, the year of a scene called 'Shoegazing'. They were from Wigan, hardly a hotbed of rock n roll! Believe me, I've been to Wigan many times - ah there was a girl with eyes so full and.... sorry! Let's get down to the business at hand! This was The Verve's first ever single, and it owed a lot to the skyscraping guitars of Ride, Slowdive - etc. But, all along, The Verve wanted to be the new Echo And The Bunnymen! They never ever sounded like them in a million years! A sure sign of a great group! 'All In The Mind' itself rolls along, the guitars sure are skyscraping - but nothing startling, nothing to blow your mind or make you fly - as the band had intended. Second song 'One Way To Go' is more like it, although not yet fully executed. A seven minute long b-side, with lots of wonderful sounding, rolling bass guitar. Even better was third song, 'Man Called Son' and suddenly Verve ( they were forced to change their name thanks to Verve records! ) were out on their own. A haunting vocal and bass line - little else. Slightly psychedelic lyrics. Enough to make you want to track down their next release, anyway.

 

Name me one other band in the history of music - whose second single was ten minutes long? Name me one? This kids, is originality! This is doing something different from the rest of the pack. Of course, you've got to do it well. Unluckily for The Verve, few understood what the hell they were trying to do - releasing two songs adding to twenty minutes of music, as their second single? Yes, well - luckily for them, 'She's A Superstar' has lovely tender vocals and even lovelier guitars and bass. It's ambitious, it's sometimes the entire world, if you get into the mood of it. The b-side was a short ten minute long ditty called 'Feel'. The atmosphere is everywhere now, and the bass guy excels himself especially by repeating the same lines over and over again. Excels? Yeah, well.... It's all about the sound, the mood, the atmosphere. The vocals are truly otherworldly, so quiet and out into space - you really couldn't even begin to pretend to imagine them. Let's pretend you had all the talent in the world? Would you come up with something like this? Or would your talent lend your hot new group to rip off The Rolling Stones - because, you know - you can. The Verve existed outside of all of that kind of thing. Mention Pink Floyd if you will - but Pink Floyd certainly never came from Wigan!

 

AND! 'Gravity Grave', the song, is even better!! An eight minute long track full of spooky, skyscraping, wonderful guitars. A totally wonderful bass line. A vocal reaching for the heavens, and suddenly it was as if progressive rock had never been invented! As if psychedelic had never been invented! The Verve at this stage - if you were one of their very few fans, made you believe, simple as that. But, first signs of strain. 'Endless Life' was all atmosphere and no melody. The last two songs on this four track EP were live renditions of previously heard songs, albeit very well done. Ah, well. Tiredness comes to us all. 'Gravity Grave' itself really is superb though, and seeing as this is a single - it still gets four out of five for 'Gravity Grave' alone.
 

The legendary John Leckie produces the debut Verve album, but it isn't at all an accurate representation of their standing at this time. Stung by certain press complaints about the length of their songs, they decide to release 'Blue' as a single, only three minutes long and nothing like as good as previous singles. Yes, this is compromise, folks! This is pandering to the big money guys!! But, even so - this album is a fine debut, because The Verve's ambition and vision still shines through most of the songs here. If you are only familiar with 'Urban Hymns' chances are, this record will sound like the work of a different group altogether, as will the three early singles. So, be warned! Opener 'Star Sail' for example, is all soaring guitars - psychedelic tinged guitars, wonderful bass. It lacks a certain structure and ends without reaching any sort of conclusion, but it sounds great. The sound of The Verve at this stage is encapsulated by 'Star Sail' even though it's only three minutes long. The bass guitar sounds wonderful and pins everything together, allowing lead guitarist Nick McCabe to express himself. Richard Ashcroft is slightly buried beneath the musical mix, but this is a fine, grand song. And, things are building up! 'Already There' is five minutes long, one of the lengthier songs here, and it's absolutely wonderful. The bass and drums set the atmosphere, very quiet with the guitar adding minimal but beautiful lines over the top. The vocals reach upwards, get louder as the song goes on, as does the music. It reaches a crescendo through the chorus, and it's a wonderful thing and a good use of dynamics.

'Beautiful Mind' is all soft, slow atmospheric bass with beautiful guitar over the top. Richard sings softly - this rivals 'Man Called Son' for atmosphere, but is better recorded thanks to John Leckie. 'The Sun, The Sea' is all guitars, rivals 'Gravity Grave' but is half the length of that song. It maybe could have stretched out - but really, is fine as it is. 'Virtual World' is all bass and lead guitar, the music dominates - the drums support the bass whilst the vocals become another instrument. Richard Ashcroft was not really the most notable aspect of the group at this time, they were very together, a proper band. He got most of the press attention when he claimed he could fly, or something equally as silly - and he looked striking. Basically, everything added together. 'Make It Til Monday' dispenses with the guitars partly to incorporate keyboards - the bass still sounds wonderful and the vocal is suitably soft and airy. 'Blue' is back to the mix of 'Gravity Grave' - all guitars and bass guitar, but mixed in an even more prominent psychedelic fashion with backwards sounding percussion running though the song. 'Butterfly' is the longest song here, topping six minutes in length but unfortunately is a formless, tuneless jam, lacking in structure and with everything seemingly buried and swimming in the mix, so no one musical or vocal aspect really stands out. The closing 'See You In The Next One' although featuring a nice vocal, marks Richard Aschroft's debut on acoustic guitar, whilst the talented Nick McCabe is relegated solely to keyboards. The vocals do sound nice, and this is a suitably mellow closing track, but following the lack-lustre 'Butterfly' you wanted something a little more. Still, the first half of this album at least is brilliant, and enough to earn this a good grade.

 

Owen Morris had manned the desk for the Oasis debut 'Definitely Maybe'. The Verve and Oasis had something of a mutual admiration society going on, so Owen got the call to help The Verve nail down their musical vision a bit better than they'd accomplished on the still entertaining 'A Storm In Heaven'. Richard Ashcroft believes 'A Storm In Heaven' will achieve great posthumous acclaim, but given that The Verve are, at the time of writing, five years extinct, that seems unlikely to me. More likely is that 'A Northern Soul' will eclipse the far better selling 'Urban Hymns' to become THE Verve album. And, that's something of a story in itself, the name change. The Verve, formerly Verve, were forced to change their name prior to this album following complaints from the similarly titled Jazz label. Options were considered, 'Verve UK' for example, but the simple addition of a definitive solved the problem. The Verve. Sounds ok, doesn't it? The band and producer may well have, shall we say, 'indulged' during the stressful recordings for this album, but it all turned out OK in the end. Tension and stress can sometimes be beneficial to the creation of a great album. Did Bob Dylan feel stress and tension recording 'Blonde On Blonde'? Well, that record doesn't indicate any stress, but Bob was undoubtedly 'wired' on the tours he was performing. He was staying up all night on artificial energy and something had to give. Luckily for the sake of art, it didn't give until he'd created the likes of 'Highway 61 Revisited' and 'Blonde On Blonde'. Bob would recover of course, and this is all history anyway.

Do The Verve deserve to be mentioned alongside an acknowledged classic icon of Rock such as Dylan anyway? Well, not in terms of longevity, influence, innovation. So? Well, Rock seems to grow more fragmented with every passing year, so the question isn't easily answerable. I'm not going to even try, things have changed. One thing is clear however, and that's songs from 'A Northern Soul', songs as incandescent and triumphant as 'This Is Music' and 'A New Decade' are as good as anything recorded in the Nineties, at least. And that should mean something, provided you, the listener of Rock & Pop music, are open to music created after Rock's 'golden' era. There are so many moments on this album I enjoy, even if the album as a whole isn't quite the perfect work it should have been. Sloppy editing - two instrumental 'interludes' spoil this records flow, and the next to closing track 'Stormy Clouds' also lacks the thrill and distinction of the finer songs here. The finer songs, these moments I so enjoy, include the beautiful, perfectly crafted ballads 'On Your Own' and 'History'. The latter features a string section and points the way clearly towards 'Urban Hymns'. 'Drive You Home' is the longest track here, six and a half minutes of bass guitar that sounds like waves gently caressing an ocean on a balmy summers evening. Reminiscent of earlier Verve material such as 'Feel', 'Drive You Home' features a very affecting and genuinely lovely vocal from Richard. In a similar vein is the only slightly less enjoyable 'So It Goes'. 'No Knock At My Door' and 'This Is Music' allow guitarist Nick McCabe to show off his psychedelic guitar lines to full exhilarating effect and 'Life's An Ocean', which would have made a great album closer, contains a notable rhythm section performance.

Little here lyrically approaches poetry, but the lyrics are perfectly appropriate and a line such as 'I was buying some feelings from a vending machine' enough to at least gain your attention. So, 'A Northern Soul' may be a flawed, imperfect work. Three of the twelve tracks do little for me. The rest of this album is perhaps as good a record as The Verve were capable of. And, that's enough. They reached in places a state they were aiming to reach. Beautiful songs, and wonderful performances full of feeling and passion.

 

The Verve split up, Richard Aschroft began work on a solo album with the remaining members of The Verve, and the addition of Simon Tong on guitar and keyboards. But, it was felt a certain spark was missing. Nick McCabe was re-integrated into the group after Richard swallowed his pride and asked him to rejoin. The trouble was, nine of these thirteen songs had already reached advanced stages of completion. Nick found himself with little to add to songs such as 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' or 'Lucky Man'. They sounded 'full' already. He tried his best, and then The Verve recorded four new songs, full band performances and compositions to finish off the album. But, that's the problem. This isn't really a Verve album at all. It's a Verve EP married to, what is in effect, the first Richard Ashcroft solo album. And, that's not all. 'Bittersweet Symphony' with the help of the bands Massive Attack inspired 'walking down the street' video rocketed to number two in the UK charts. Success at last! Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, ludicrously, ended up collecting all of the royalties thanks to the similarity between the string section here, and an orchestral version of their own 'The Last Time'. They didn't write or arrange the orchestra for that version of 'The Last Time'. They didn't write the lyrics to 'Bittersweet Symphony' either, so it seems astonishing to me that The Verve had to surrender 100% of the royalties and the writing credits as well. The string drenched 'The Drugs Don't Work' followed 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' into the UK charts, actually reaching number one this time round. A lovely ballad, in the style of 'On Your Own' from 'A Northern Soul', although a little more 'blown up' production wise than that particular heart-warming, acoustic charm.

The four full band performances include the skyscraping guitars and psychedelic atmosphere of 'The Rolling People' in addition to the forgettable 'Neon Wilderness'. 'Catching The Butterfly' was better, and the first good use of the sound of The Verve's bass guitar. 'Come On' made for a fine, guitar led closer, and that was the end of the group compositions. There's a surplus of mid-tempo ballads clogging up the second side of this album. 'Weeping Willow', 'Space And Time', 'Lucky Man', 'One Day'. These songs all appear together on the album, and it's really not great sequencing. It's simply too many mid-tempo ballads, full stop, actually. Lose a couple of them, lose 'Neon Wilderness', and you might have yourselves an album here! 'Velvet Morning' is another slow song, but at least this has an affecting, slightly desolate atmosphere about it. So, in short? To long term Verve fans 'Urban Hymns', once the initial excitement of the opening two singles had died down, was a terribly disappointing work. To many more others, it was their first introduction to the group - it also broke the group in America, incidentally. They could have progressed from here, but sadly it wasn't to be. The band split once more, this time for good. Richard Ashcroft went solo proper, and that was that.

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