The Verve came back after eleven years, but not to move back into 1997. Forth is not a second Urban Hymns, although it remembers that album's broad melodies and stadium gestures. Nor is it a full return to the band's psychedelic beginnings, even if Nick McCabe regularly opens doors into that world. It is an album by four people who found a common rhythm again, but not necessarily a common future.
A return with no obligation to pretend it was 1997
Band reunions resemble gatherings after many years apart, where everyone assures us it is all about friendship, music and bringing the story to a proper close. Nobody mentions money, because money has a notoriously bad ear and might feel awkward. The audience joins the arrangement too: it buys a ticket, puts on an old T-shirt and pretends for two hours that time knows how to behave itself.
When The Verve announced their reunion in June 2007, Richard Ashcroft on vocals, Nick McCabe on guitar, Simon Jones on bass and Peter Salisbury on drums all returned. The original quartet had not played together in almost a decade, so the mere sight of Ashcroft and McCabe in the same room felt like an event. If the label had sold tickets to the soundcheck, that would probably have sold out as well.
Forth was released on 25 August 2008, eleven years after Urban Hymns, in a world where britpop had already moved from the present tense to the memories column. The album entered the UK chart at number one and stayed there for two weeks. The Verve therefore did not need to reconstruct 1997 to become the number-one band again.
The most predictable move would have been to write another Bitter Sweet Symphony. Great strings, a great chorus, Ashcroft staring into the distance like a man who has just discovered the meaning of existence but is temporarily unable to reveal it for contractual reasons. Forth takes the less comfortable road. It is long, occasionally undisciplined, sometimes beautiful and at other times so absorbed in its own space that it appears to forget the listener. That is precisely why it sounds like a real The Verve record.
Four people, two languages
The Verve were never simply Richard Ashcroft's backing band. Ashcroft brought melodies, words and gestures that could fill a stadium. McCabe could then make that stadium disappear beneath layers of reverb, feedback and sounds that resembled weather systems more than guitar parts. Jones kept the music close to the ground, Salisbury gave it motion, and the guitar consistently tried to leave the atmosphere.
Sit and Wonder immediately reminds us of the difference between The Verve and Ashcroft's solo work. The bass does not politely lead towards a chorus; it drives into one point. The drums hold an almost tribal pulse, while McCabe's guitar does not decorate the song. It determines the weather. Above it all, Ashcroft sings like a man who has recovered his old band but has not yet checked the expiry date.
His voice is heavier than it was on the early records. He does not try to recreate youthful fever, because such attempts usually end with an expensive jacket, the wrong haircut and an interview about rediscovered energy. Ashcroft sounds like someone who knows most of the bends in the road and gets back into the car anyway.
Between song and space
Love Is Noise received an ungrateful assignment. It had to announce that The Verve still existed while avoiding the sound of its own tribute act. A processed vocal loop introduces a mechanical pulse around which the group builds a track on stadium scale. The single reached number four in the UK, but its power is not merely a matter of chorus size. McCabe treats the guitar as a source of light, noise and pressure, while the rhythm section drives everything forward without promising that the road ends anywhere sensible.
The more traditional Rather Be shows the side of Ashcroft that needs a clear melody and a wide chorus. Judas and Numbness draw the album into a heavier atmosphere, while Noise Epic spends more than eight minutes falling apart, thickening and returning, as if the decision to end it belonged to someone who had just left the studio. It can irritate, but it also reminds us that The Verve were not formed to deliver efficient three-and-a-half-minute singles.
The best moments on Forth arrive when the band stops guarding the song and starts building space. Ashcroft wants to lead the melody towards the light; McCabe dissolves its edges; Jones and Salisbury find a rhythm between those desires. Sometimes they make sure the music does not drift too far away. Sometimes they have evidently decided to see what happens.
The last light
The closing part of the album consists of Valium Skies, the nocturnal and psychedelic Columbo, and Appalachian Springs, which ends the standard edition. That final track delivers no spectacular triumph. It slowly releases the tension, leaves the melody without a final answer and lets the guitar enlarge the space instead of slamming the door.
Forth was not made as a farewell album. There is no elegant bow and no sense that the musicians know they are writing the final page. The last concerts of this phase took place in August 2008; public news of another split arrived almost a year later. The Verve returned, made a number-one record and vanished again. They always had a special talent for making music larger than their own ability to remain together.
Forth is not as groundbreaking as A Storm in Heaven, as tense as A Northern Soul or as complete as Urban Hymns. Its value lies elsewhere. It shows that The Verve's sound did not belong to a single decade. It came into being whenever Ashcroft's voice met McCabe's guitar and the rhythm section tried to contain that conflict within one track.
The comeback did not turn back time. Fortunately. Had The Verve really tried to reconstruct 1997, we would probably have received a faithful copy of a memory, elegantly packaged, expertly promoted and wholly unnecessary. Forth is less comfortable: uneven, occasionally too long, sometimes beautiful, sometimes lost. That is why it remains alive.
It does not close the story with an exclamation mark. It lets it fade slowly into the space of Appalachian Springs, with no certainty that any of the four musicians truly spoke the final word.
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