The Verve - 'Forth' (Parlophone) Released 25/08/08

So here it is, then. The record Dickie Ashcroft claims The Verve always threatened to make. The omens have been damn good from the outset; triumphant reunion shows late in 2007, a blistering run on the 2008 festival circuit - including a Glastonbury set that arguably came close to matching their legendary Haigh Hall gig a decade earlier - and a smash single in the shape of the fookin' brilliant ‘Love Is Noise’. Without getting too carried away with it, you could start thinking that ‘Forth’ may surpass the dizzy heights of ‘Urban Hymns’ and ‘A Northern Soul’. Just maybe.

Already a mainstay of their live shows, album opener ‘Sit and Wonder’ sets things up tantalisingly. Very much a classic Verve behemoth, Ashcroft’s voice is towering and his delivery is fist-clenchingly cocky as he urgently sings “She’s he teacher and I’m the pupil, but I ain’t learning anything at all… yeah, give me some light” amidst Nick McCabe’s much-missed layered guitar work. Their 11 year absence is almost obliterated in seven commanding minutes. Keeping the pace, the already ubiquitous ‘Love Is Noise’ needs very little introduction, while ‘Rather Be’ is the kind of trademark dreamy, psychedelia imbued indie anthem that no-one else can make quite like these Wigan boys. “Is there anywhere better than here?”, Ashcroft asks. Not many. Not many.

The delicate ‘Judas’ does little to change these thoughts, but sadly by the time we reach ‘Numbness’ the first cracks begin to show. The track in question which should rightfully be a centre-piece of the record is cumbersome and meandering; Ashcroft and the band sound as disinterested as we are throughout the drawling, dragging six-and-a-half-minutes. However, for a band who we all thought would never reform, it’s no surprise when they come back fighting with the epic ‘I See Houses’. Direct and powerful, it’s a sure-fire one dimensional Verve anthem. Perfectly bouncing off this, ‘Noise Epic’, as the name suggests, is a wall of hazy guitars, scuzzy vocals and is rock n' roll to the core.

Yet, these plus points can't deter from the fact that most of the songs on 'Forth' are too long and lack significant variation. At times, it's a challenging listen, but in the worst possible sense. On the rousing, string-led 'Valium Skies’ they get away with it emphatically, but the subsequent 'Columbo' is nothing more than a jamming session and a dismally underwhelming penultimate moment. Thankfully, the closing stadium-filler 'Appalachian Springs' – one of the album highlights – eradicates much of the negativity in the second half of the record.

A Verve album by numbers, while 'Forth' is by no means a disappointment it only hints at their late Nineties greatness. Whether or not there will be a fifth chapter in The Verve story remains to be seen.