The Verve - Forth (2008)

Hmmm.

About four tracks in and finding it a bit, er, meandery. Not an enormous shock, granted...

Every comment I've seen ablut the album on ILM has been negative so far. Not a good sign (but, to be fair, I know nothing about this band, except that one big late-90s hit, which -- admittedly -- was very good).

ablut = about, obv.

I need to give the whole thing a proper listen, and right now I have it in crap quality, but at the very least "Sit and Wonder" is nice, as is the bass on "Columbo" and that slightly tacked-on last two minutes of "Noise Epic."

WHAT AN AWESOME TITLE

Next single, "Ballad you can't help but cry to no matter how much you hate us".

Course that sounds like a working title but fuck this, who cares

Here we go again!

The Verve's future is yet again thrown into turmoil after a huge bust up on stage at Osakas' Summer Sonic festival which resulted in guitarist Nick McCabe allegedly being sectioned and admitted to hospital. Sources close to band think there is as much chance of them playing this weekend's V Festival as Isaac Hayes.

Audience members told us that Richard Ashcroft smashed his guitar at the end of 'Lucky Man' in frustration at a bad gig. During 'Bittersweet Symphony', McCabe decided to respond by playing a right old racket all the way through causing Ashcroft to leave the stage kicking a guitar stand over on his way (Woooo!).

More guitar throwing ensued and the Japanese fans were subjected to five minutes of McCabe trying to plug his guitar back in before trying to speak Japanese and slumping off stage.

He didn't join the rest of the band on the flight home due to, well, being in hospital suffering from a bad case of 'exhaustion' which medical scientists have translated as "beinginverveitis" throwing this weekend's headline slot at V Festival into serious doubt.

The people with the toughest job in the worl, The Verve's PR company have issued the following statement:

"Contrary to rumours circulating Nick McCabe cut his finger on piece of glass in the dressing room after the gig in Japan," they told NME.COM. "He was treated by medics at the scene and then flew home. He's fine except for sore finger and that won't effect their appearance at V at the weekend."

So a 'cut finger' that was "treated at the scene by medics" forces you to miss the flight that the rest of the band were on does it?

Nick McCabe only arrived back in London tonight and according to souces close to the band, Ashcroft is up for doing V Festival, but "It's down to Nick".

Cut finger my arse.

During 'Bittersweet Symphony', McCabe decided to respond by playing a right old racket all the way through

The thing there is that McCabe is always playing a big racket through BSS.

Youtube has it: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HurBQX8oTPU - gets 'good' about 2:30mins in.

Not loving that camerawork

the leak i have is only 128 so i'm going to wait to listen to this. i'm hearing that the record is pretty good though.

gets 'good' about 2:30mins in.

Bah. At least I got to see McCabe javelin toss his guitar into his amp at the end of the Vegas show.

After a couple more listens, I'm going back and...forth on whether it's a decent record with some standout tunes or a boring 64-minute psych-puddle.

That sounds about right.

It'd be OK, well, it'd be better, if Nasty Richard didn't do his moanmoansnarlmoangrowlsnalrmoanyeahbabec'mongiveittomesnarlmoansnalmoanyeahc'monisaidyeahc'monmoansnarlgrowl vocal ad-lib all over the fucking place. That's why Noise Epic is best, because you can't hear him snarling at you.

Rather Be is pretty horrible. I just hate the way Ashcroft starts his verse melodies. Uergh. It's just nasty. But the chorus, repetitive, keeps getting caught in my brane.

Probably the wrong time to say that I actually kinda like "Love Is Noise" :-/ and may even have given it a point or two in the trax ballot :-/ :-/ :-/

(if it had been nommed, which it thankfully wasn't)

i really love the big cheesy dance remix that freelance hellraiser did of that track.

the track sounded much better in the context of the album. The whole album grew on me. Could've been a lot lot worse.

ooh. i may have to succumb to the urge.
have listened to their other albums today and enjoyoed them a lot more than when i bought them.

I loved the 1st 2 and yes i loved urban hymns too, i admit it. But I didnt think id like Forth, but it wasnt anywhere near as bad as i expected. Some of it was actually good. Supposedly live they were ace,wish i'd gone now.

Heard "Columbo" on earphones and it blossomed into this dark, roomy psych-out