The Verve: Forth

Only if you've been living in a hole recently will you not know that The Verve are back. I've talked about Love is Noise more than once - and next Monday (25th) the album "Forth" is released.

However as a teaser, for this week only, the entire album's been available for streaming on the band's myspace. The aim no doubt to encourage us out to buy it in hard copy (or download for those that do that sort of thing).

Has it worked then? Well, it never was going to for me - I'm moving house next week so the pennies are being carefully watched until pay-day. It's still a good album though.

A nice mix of new and old - songs like Rather Be and I see houses in a similar vein to their earlier work. Contrast that though with Noise Epic, which is an eight-minute, erm, epic - loud, raucous, and a variety of styles within one song alone. You think it's finished at around the six minute mark - but it restarts even more brash than before. Then you've got Columbo and (of course) Love is Noise - which sit together as a pairing in an almost pyschadelic fashion.

There's actually a lot of songs that are very lengthy. Gone is the "3 minute pop-song". This will certainly make them less radio friendly - although I predict radio edits might soon make an appearance to solve that issue. I don't consider it a problem though - the song are proper songs, and feel complete. Often 'long' songs feel long, none of these do - they are the right length for the type of music. The only restraint on the song is the music itself.

It's diverse, it's different, yet it's refreshingly familiar. The come back is all the rage nowadays, and as a result it's often done badly. But, The Verve have managed to - perhaps once again - break the mould.