Nearing 30 -The Verve :: Urban Hymns
Photo: Chris Floyd
Photo: Chris Floyd
Before diving into this melodic masterpiece of timeless tonality and brilliant bliss, I must digress by telling you, the sacred reader, about the first time I heard the sublime single “Bitter Sweet Symphony” off The Verve’s 1997 classic album “Urban Hymns". I understand the album as a whole is a magical mirage that ripples like a sonic stream unplugged from the universe, while several other breathtaking entries expand their whispering wings. Of course, I wouldn’t become familiar with the rest of the record and its liberating language till many years later, but that’s besides the point. For a kid growing up in the 1990s, this track, in particular, radiates an almost lethal dose of never-ending nostalgia while simultaneously acting as part of the soothing soundtrack for long car rides on backcountry roads in search of yard sales on the weekends, a school yard crush that doesn’t even know you exist, but most importantly, the song choice for Tom Penny’s legendary skateboard part in 2003’s “Flip: Really Sorry.” Combining elements of hip hop, and technacility you can imagine the instant obsession this would have on a young kid getting into both music, and skateboarding around the same time. But alas, you came here for some weird words and academic adjectives that express and explore the epic elements of this band’s third LP, “Urban Myths”, right? You’ve gotten this far! Having split up for a brief period during the promotion and pressures of their second album, “A Northern Soul”, an underrated achievement in the band’s early years, the group saw critical change, and an intense influx of musicians and producers like Simon Tong, John Leckie, Owen Morris, Martin “Youth” Glover, who replaced by Chris Potter, and Bernard Butler, guitarist for Suede, before collectively centering themselves with the return of Nick McCabe just months before the release at the beginning of 1997.
Photo: Chris Floyd
Similar to The Clash not having Mick Jones to carry that irreplaceable intensity, a comparison may seem like low-hanging fruit, or possibly even drab at this point, but without McCabe’s iconic instrumentation coursing through the album’s victorious veins, who’s to say the sonic ship would have even left port? Forcing Ashcroft to take radical responsibility in the absence of the band’s sophisticated sound scientist, these were rather revolutionary times for the band’s chemistry and influence between 1996 and 1997. Combining the essence of the 1960s, in particular The Kinks’ “Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire”, The Moody Blues’ “A Question of Balance”, and the ethereal echoes of Joy Division’s 1980 masterpiece “Closer”, The Verve consciously severed ties with their past by cutting a new poetic path, that has since become a tonal treasure map for bands over the decades. The album’s opening track, “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” pulls from the gravitational grandeur of The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time” while simultaneously displaying a rapid-fire response to the system of emotions surrounding love, substance, isolation, and the journey through the sense with numbers like “Weeping Willow”, “Neon Wilderness”, “Sonnet”, and “The Drugs Don’t Work.” Like most groups, The Verve have had their ups and downs to say the least, but from a rare retrospect nearly thirty years later, it’s a safe assumption that everything evens out in the end. Like nature balancing itself out after a heroic hurricane, or a silent storm that sweeps across a nation in the night, only to reveal a lovely rainbow resting high above in the morning clouds like a highway billboard whose message expresses that there’s salvation ahead, this band has come full circle in many different ways.
