The British The Verve seems to come back stronger after every hiatus in their career. The most famous album Urban Hymns was already a comeback record in 1997. After a moderately successful solo career of singer Richard Ashcroft, the group returned again in 2008, first at the British summer festivals and then with this fourth album. To the credit of this quartet, they not only build on the song-dominated
… Urban Hymns, but also return to the more wild and psychedelic early years. Heavy, hypnotic grooves are often the basis for Nick McCabe's inventive and free guitar parts. Ashcroft, in turn, gives substance and coherence to this with his always enchanting and emotionally charged voice. Lovers of melodic hits such as Bittersweet Symphony and The Drugs Don't Work will definitely have to keep going. Whether it is the drugs that do their job again, we leave in the middle, but on the layered Forth it is quite psychedelic again and The Verve still does not seem to lack inspiration and magic. (MR)more