oh, band reunions. one question that always comes up during these sort of things is whether the reunion is legitimate, or if the members have just temporarily set their grievances aside to make a quick buck travelling along the summer festival circuit. despite the frequency of reunions these days, few bands ever get their shit together long enough to record an album and i would almost insist that they keep it that way (case in point: the smashing pumpkins), but the verve have history on their side. having broken up once before in 1995, the band re-formed in 1997 and released urban hymns, their most beautiful and ambitious album to-date, only to break up once again in 1999. there’s no reason why they can’t pull it off again.
forth begins and satiates the appetite of verve fans by sounding like no time has passed whatsoever: “sit and wonder” is a groovy, dark, drum-and-bass-heavy track, filled with loud distorted guitar strums and reverberating leads. “love is noise” follows, and stands to be one of the most interesting tracks on forth, mainly because of how different it is from the rest of the verve’s catalogue… yet, it still sounds familiar and anthemic. “rather be” is a lovely piano and string-driven song that marks the end of the strong first third of the album, and unfortunately, the beginning of the lacklustre two-thirds (peppered with some great moments). forth’s is simply weighed down by too much fat; a lean, 45-minute verve album would have been lovely, if not slightly out-of-character. certainly the verve have always been about their loose, unfinished, whitmanesque kind of freedom, but their songs were still appropriate lengths and their noisy jams served a purpose. urban hymns, while sometimes painfully sentimental, still had quite a bit of piss and vinegar to it that’s severely lacking from this album. “come on” closed that album with ashcroft screaming “THIS IS A BIG FUCK YOU!!!” over a caucaphony of wah-ing guitars and crashing cymbals, whereas forth’s “appalachain springs” takes a much more laid back approach, choosing to fizzle rather than explode. if the verve insist on sounding just as they did a decade ago, then they must also bring the same level of conviction to their music that they once had, or else face becoming just another nostalgia-trip.
Filed under: Album Review , 2008, forth, the verve, urban hymns
