The Verve- Forth

The verve are a band listed alongside famous names such as oasis, blur and pulp, with a host of famous songs like the drugs don't work, sonnet and of course the epic bittersweet symphony.
The question was always can they step up and do what others have failed to do and launch a succesful comeback?
The album launches with an eerie atmospheric pinpoint siren noise echoing around before a drumbeat and eratic guitar come in with the lyrics announcing the song title "sit and wonder" the instrumentals do a great job of announcing loudly "we're here to do our thang" but lyrically it begins to bore. Next to the single......
Love is noise a great name, which many a music fan would agree with and indeed very vervesque. This song builds from the outset with vocal cawwing and whooping with the drums rumbling in, with vocals to match and as is with a good verve song a sing-along chorus "Love is noise, love is pain Love is these blues that I'm feeling again" the whole song feels a skip ahead of your heartbeat and is ultimately successful and hopeful for the rest of the alum.
Rather Be opens with moby style aquatic wah style guitars, and ashcroft coming in with a dylanesque drawl in his voice which pitters away in the chorus. Ultimately this is a sweet love song, with lyrics such as " Sometimes life seems to tear us apart don`t wanna let you go ". Nothing epic but good none the less.
Judas is a quiet jangly number with occasional prince vocals, but feels pretentious and uninspiring.
In comes Numbness, a cross between Tom Petty and Pink Floyd even the words "breathe in the air don't be afraid" they could be accused of copyright fraud however there is enough of thei own inventiveness and distinctive vocals to show these are simply heavy influences. All in all one of my favourite tracks on the album.
This is followed strongly by i see houses with slidey soundscaping guitars and moaning vocals not to dis-similar to one of ashcrofts solo efforts, check the meaning a pleasant listening experience with a nice melody.
Noise epic rests your ears at first slowly building into a rocky riff and distant vocals much like a Nick Cave track, flowing into some punky drawling vocals. and round. About 4:30 we get an echoing spiralling UFO like noise, coming into a southern rock ending. For all the name promises, and the occasional highlight there's too many effects and ideas going on for this to be truly epic.
The melodic follow-up is Valium Skies which is a pleasant enough chilled out track and could-be-second-single, though it possibly would have needed more padding, to bring the whole song closer to the chorus.
As the album draws to a close the remaining two tracks are quiet chilled out soundscapes with Columbo having a dreamlike feel with disjointed echoey instrumentals in the background throughout and changes in vocal pitch to take you on a journey which is quite interesting and their experimenting on this one has been successful.
The ending track Appalachian Springs is a nice vocal treat and pleasant floydesque instrumentals with a feeling of leading you nicely out of the album into a pleasant quilt of nothingness.
Ultimately the verve slot right back in, with one of the more succesful comebacks we've seen. This needs though, to be a springboard for further succesful albums, given their willingness to experiment and ease in which they create such a great single as love is noise.
This track along with Rather Be, Numbness and Valium skies being others of particular success.
All-in-all the question can they launch a successful comeback and the answer has to be a yes but rome wasn't built in a day.: 7.5/10