the verve - forth

... din ciclul "Better late then never", atrag atentia, cu mai mult de 2 luni intarziere...

Billboard :"While it was no big surprise that the Verve got back together last fall after a nine-year hiatus, what's simply stunning is the quality of this reunion album. More than any of the recent comeback efforts from like-minded groups, "Forth" not only equals the Verve's best work, but in many cases exceeds it. "Judas" is the most beautiful song the band has ever written, its burbling guitar lines conjuring a gloriously bleary New York sunrise. "Valium Skies" is the kind of ready-made anthem that turned the Verve into a superstar in the first place, while "Appalachian Skies" and "I See Houses" are hard-hitting hybrids of emotion and virtuosity. Even more enticing are "Sit and Wonder" and the aptly named, eight-minute "Noise Epic," which reignite the psychedelic passions of the Verve's earliest releases. So when Richard Ashcroft wonders, "Is there anywhere better than here?" on "Rather Be," it's easy to exclaim, "Hell, no!" —Jonathan Cohen
"

Rolling Stone: "Two of the best psychedelic rock shows I've ever seen were by this British band, in London and New York, in the summer of 1993, and most of the Verve's fourth record — their first after a decade apart — is a return to that whirlpool-guitar, shaman-song form. "Sit and Wonder" is what they meant by their 1993 album title A Storm in Heaven: the trancelike gallop of bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury; guitarist Nick McCabe's creamy distortion and ascending rings of tremolo and feedback; singer Richard Ashcroft's drawling incantation, like Liam Gallagher in Lizard King leather. The songs skirt standard verse-chorus form; the best of them are just chord patterns that swirl and mutate with slow assurance. In "Judas," McCabe fires bird-cry bursts of twang and threads long, humming lines through Ashcroft's R&B whoops. "Love Is Noise" is smart acid-dance candy notched with a laughing-choir vocal hook. But "Appalachian Springs" gives the best afterglow. Built on the ballad-prayer model of "The Drugs Don't Work" (on 1997's Urban Hymns) and coated in McCabe's melting guitars and Ashcroft's higher-than-you bleating, it is Forth's final track — and most complete trip."

Spin: ""There's no need for introductions," Richard Ashcroft announces in "Rather Be," a song from the Verve's first album in more than a decade. And that much is true: though the U.K. scene has changed dramatically since they last ruled -- consider the applause Jay-Z earned by covering Oasis' "Wonderwall" at Glastonbury -- Ashcroft and his bandmates continue the mission they abandoned on 1997's Urban Hymns, wedding classic-rock swagger to dream-pop swoon in ten instantly recognizable tracks of self-important psychedelia. Clearly, the Ting Tings have not won the battle against bloat.
Of course, if your formula once worked well enough to yield a tune as indelible as "Bitter Sweet Symphony," why mess with (potential) success? Indeed, much of Forth makes a strong case for the continued vitality of big-tent guitar anthems: On "Love Is Noise," Ashcroft bemoans our modern times over a sleekly propulsive dance-rock groove the Killers would kill for, while guitarist Nick McCabe sets "Judas" adrift in a sea of shimmering reverb. Unsurprisingly, given the hit-or-miss quality of Ashcroft's white-soul solo albums, a few of the ballads meander. (You can't say "Valium Skies" didn't warn you.) But six minutes into the longest cut -- helpfully titled "Noise epic" -- McCabe detonates a Stooges-style boogie-punk bomb that could get any football hooligan's fist pumping. Are the Verve back? Maybe. Definitely."