The Verve, Forth

Once again, I am reviewing a band that I remember from high school but never picked up on at the time. You can also add The Verve to the list of bands and artists that are making the decade-plus return to recording, since their last album, Urban Hymns, was released in 1997. Approaching The Verve with only "Bittersweet Symphony" under my belt, I went into this review with the question: Does Forth make me interested in backtracking and partaking of their back catalog?

First impressions from the first two songs did not leave me particularly impressed. They were somewhere between something dancey, psychedelic, indie, and alternative. Not bad, but not knocking me out of my chair. On a second listen, opener "Sit And Wonder" fared better. "Rather Be" sounds like they're trying to be Coldplay. Point in fact, "Judas" sounds like a Coldplay song too. But I suppose there is limited room to work in the realm of contemporary alternative, so someone is going to sound like someone else sooner or later. Or maybe Coldplay is trying too hard to sound like The Verve's older recordings, which is entirely possible since I have never heard any of their prior albums.

"Numbness" comes off as a smokey basement barroom sort of song: dry, plodding, strained... just the way I like it. Unfortunately, it feels like it's much longer than it is and thus leaves the listener numb before the next track. However, it's also where the album picks up for me, since the next track, "I See Houses," is actually a rather fascinating, sprawling, spacey track. Still sounds like Coldplay though (or vice versa, as discussed above). "Noise Epic" kicks up the tempo to something a bit more rocking and is the only track I'm really enjoying at this point. I like the distortion, the changes in tempo within the song, and the spaciness of the thing, but when they say "epic," they mean it: "Noise Epic" runs over eight minutes. "Valium Skies" is appropriately named; it's trying damn hard to put me to sleep. I can't say much about the rest of the album except it drags on mercilessly.

For a alternative/pop/rock/thing, they make a major mistake, one of the worst mistakes any band can make: the songs are too bloody long. Admitted, this is nothing new, as my research on Wikipedia shows that they tend towards longer tracks (Urban Hymns was 75:51 overall; their first release, A Storm in Heaven, is the only album by The Verve under fifty minutes). Accuse me of having the attention span of a coked-up hyena who drank six pots of coffee, but I really think they should have pared this thing down by around ten to fifteen minutes. The best albums leave the listener wanting more rather than having us stare at the counter, wondering, "When will it ever end?" Forth fits into the latter category. Between 35 and 45 minutes is a good album length; anything over is most likely going to lose your listeners. At least they didn't make the mistake of having too many songs.

Notes on album art and packaging: I like cloud photos, so I liked the cover, but if you don't like cloud photos, you will find it boring/pretentious/some other mean words. No lyrics in the liner notes. Also, the case is one of those annoying cardboard sleeves. Not the kind that have another sleeve inside to house the disc, just a bifold chunk of cardboard with the CD slipped into a flap on one side.

To answer the question: not really, no. Maybe I will backtrack to their prior albums, someday, just for the hell of it. The problem being that, if their prior albums sound anything like this, I will probably never listen to them. Forth is not a bad album by any standard; it's just not mind-shatteringly awesome. It is not a force to be reckoned with. It's good, but not great. I foresee this being something that sits on the shelf, forgotten until stumbled upon, listened to, and then put back into limbo.



The Verve's website and myspace