The Verve
Forth

THE REVIEW

9/11 and 7/7, Youtube and MySpace, the rise of Coldplay and that of the Arctic Monkeys, the arrival of George W. Bush and the end of Tony Blair, the disappearance of Britpop and the advent of Hip-Hop, mp3 and digital, iTunes and the end of the album as such, "American Idol" and various useless things: in the last eleven years of the Verve's absence from the scene, all this and much more has happened, and it is impossible not to take it into account after hearing of their incredible comeback.

Thus comes out the comeback album, "Forth", a product that, first of all, starts with a wordplay as a title: "Forth" at a first glance makes one think of "Fourth" (i.e., the band's fourth studio work), and instead stands for "Forth" (meaning "forward"), almost a warning launched from the cover by Richard Ashcroft and co. Over a decade after the masterpiece "Urban Hymns" (released on September 29th, 1997, and capable of selling 500,000 copies in Italy alone), the unexpected success of songs like "Bittersweet Symphony", "The Drugs Don't Work" and the breakup in April 1999, here are the four back on stage with an album that has been deeply discussed and scrutinized by both the public and critics. The classic lineup, the one that formed in Wigan in 1989, with Ashcroft on vocals, Nick McCabe on guitar, Simon Jones on bass, and Peter Salisbury on drums, and ten songs for a very long album (65 minutes) that immediately surprises with the band's state of grace and Ashcroft's vocal cords which practically do whatever he wants, becoming Marvin Gaye and Liam Gallagher, soaring into falsetto and descending into baritone.

Epic opening with "Sit And Wonder", more than a song a statement of intent, a sumptuous piece suspended on a carpet of guitars and percussion with Ashcroft repeating "Sit And Wonder" at the start of each verse before entering a chorus that keeps the piece dark and low as if behind the singer's vocal cords were Massive Attack rather than the Verve, while at the end of the track comes a solo where McCabe sounds like David Gilmour's brother. Then comes the single, "Love Is Noise", already a band classic, catchy and contagious with a chorus that sticks and is supported by an almost three-dimensional production, with an obsessive loop that makes it a rave pop piece. "Rather Be" starts with a majestic piano before adding the other instruments, although the focal point of the track remains Ashcroft's voice as in the subsequent "Judas", perhaps the masterpiece of the album: six minutes of soul that seem crafted in Manchester, as if Marvin Gaye had been born white and a worker in Thatcher's 80s. "I See Houses" which sounds like a "Lucky Man" 2.0 version, piano and electronics on two different tracks that then converge into a decidedly "Vervian" chorus.

The album unwinds between claustrophobic electronics shifted to twang guitars ("Numbness"), beats over which Ashcroft practically does spoken word ("Noise Epic", 8 minutes and 17) and decidedly atypical country ballads ("Appalachian Springs"), to complete a lengthy and complex work that takes its time and where you can feel a band in tremendous form that did everything as they wanted and waited for the right moment to do it, tying to the real protagonist of "Forth", Richard Ashcroft, who after the great scare of finding an anomaly in his lungs and the consequent decision to quit smoking (it was two packs a day) looked back, called back his old friends, and understood it was a shame to throw away such a glorious past. To do so, he built a bright present starting from an album that in the end-of-year merit charts will surely end up ahead of the Coldplay's work.

Tracklist:

Sit And Wonder

Love Is Noise

Rather Be

Judas

Numbness

I See Houses

Noise Epic

Valium Skies

Columbo

Appalachian Springs

Regards.