NorthernSoul

I agree with those who said that the album gets worse with each listen... in the end, it turns out to be quite heavy.

I like the review... maybe a bit too long-winded, but it also contains the beautiful line by Edge! As for the album... I still haven't managed to absorb it after 12 years...!

but no!!! not at all!! I'm a fan of U2, I just appreciate them more for what they did before 2000! I'm even writing a thesis about them! but I try to be objective.

Urban Hymns: or The Verve without a direction. Honestly, it's quite debilitating for a fan like me to read and share the fact that in this album, Ashcroft and the gang have followed and settled into the Brit-pop-Oasis-style. But unfortunately, that's how it is. For me, the best tracks remain the more shadowy ones, Neon Wilderness...Come On and Weeping Willow.
One question, do you really hear the "The Last Time" riff from the Stones in Bittersweet Symphony?

I thought it was yet another disc for "cool" English kids (you know, the ones who live on bread and NME?), but instead, I found it to be a "decent" debut. The intro of Like Eating Glass strangely smelled of Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (which immediately made me think of a music that I find incomprehensible), but then everything got better, with Banquet being a true gem for me. I don’t know if this band will find a good continuation for their career... the debut isn’t bad, but it left me with that indescribable taste of Glamorous Indie Rock And Roll in my mouth.

Good review. Releasing a best-of after "only" 3 albums can be risky, but for this anthology things change; there are 2 new songs (Montecarlo was released in an instrumental version on a bootleg dating back 10 years), and tracks available only on CDs and vinyls that have become hard to find. What I don't quite understand is the choice of the tracklist... they are pieces thrown together; I would have preferred a chronological order: it would have better illustrated the band's evolution to newcomers. Because it is no small feat to write an album like A Storm In Heaven at 20 and end (undeservedly?) a career with a blatantly Brit-pop album like Urban Hymns.