Album review: The Verve - Forth (2.5/5)

In 1997 on the eve of splitting up for the second time, The Verve released their career-defining masterpiece, Urban Hymns, best known for the Rolling Stones-sampling "Bitter Sweet Symphony" and UK #1 "The Drugs Don't Work." This was gorgeous melodic rock music at its best. The album was a big hit, beating Radiohead's iconic OK Computer to win the Brit Award for best British album of the year. Talk about going out in style.

Eleven years later and The Verve have finally reunited and released their fourth album, Forth. Sadly, nothing comes close to the grandeur of those two hits, or even the album's other two great singles "Lucky Man" or "Sonnet." The songs are long (about 6 minutes on average) and plodding and mostly lacking in energy. A real disappointment. I've been listening to this a lot the last couple of weeks, hoping that repeated listens would reveal its charms, sadly that's not the case.

Some of the songs have a good sound, but just wear out their welcomes. "Rather Be" is case in point. I like the warm piano, strings and guitar vibe, but after the five and a half minutes are up (and that's on the shorter side among these songs), I feel like it's failed to deliver anything more interesting than what I heard in the first few bars. Same goes for the dark opening track "Sit and Wonder"--great concept, but needs editing, although not as bad as "Rather Be," for at least it delivers an interesting instrumental middle section. "Judas" has a nice ethereal sound and actually builds toward something at the end.

Other tracks plod along without giving much of anything. "Numbness" has a dark, meditative quality, but again, after the first 3 minutes, I was hoping the second 3 minutes would give me something more apart from a brief increase in the guitar tempo around 3:36. "I See Houses" has a meditative quality to it--swirls of bass, piano and guitar over a mid-tempo drum routine.

There are a few bright spots. The lead single "Love Is Noise" is pretty good, the album's most uptempo track. "Noise Epic" has a great opening, slowly layering in the guitar and then the drums and spoken-word vocal, before hitting full tilt in the first chorus. This song, despite being the longest at over 8 minutes, actually doesn't bother me, because unlike the other languid tracks, this actually has variety and momentum to it, pushing through to an explosive guitar ending. "Valium Skies" is pretty good too--more song-like than many other tracks.

Forth's songs have the ingredients of the songs from Urban Hymns--the lush multi-layered sound of guitar, piano, strings, and Ashcroft--but, with a few exceptions, seem to have been left on the stove too long.

Best: Love Is Noise, Noise Epic, Valium Skies