- by Chris Tracy
- Friday, December 08, 2006
- filed in: Indie
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The mysterious case of Richard Ashcroft’s disappearing talent would have left Sherlock Holmes himself scratching his head in bewilderment. Almost a decade on from the magisterial ‘Urban Hymns’ and the inspiration, vision and, quite simply, tunes that made The Verve’s final opus such a thrilling listen seem as far from Ashcroft’s reach as ever. ‘Why Not Nothing?’ begins with a lumbering Motownish intro and then goes nowhere, brass honking gracelessly as the Wigan warbler huffs and puffs like a heavyweight gone to seed. ‘Sweet Brother Malcolm’, although boring and mawkish, is slightly better in that it’s just about a fully realised song, although whoever told Ashcroft his Shane McGowan impersonation was worth committing to record was badly mistaken. Sometimes “rough” doesn’t equal “heartfelt”, just “crap”.
The mysterious case of Richard Ashcroft’s disappearing talent would have left Sherlock Holmes himself scratching his head in bewilderment. Almost a decade on from the magisterial ‘Urban Hymns’ and the inspiration, vision and, quite simply, tunes that made The Verve’s final opus such a thrilling listen seem as far from Ashcroft’s reach as ever. ‘Why Not Nothing?’ begins with a lumbering Motownish intro and then goes nowhere, brass honking gracelessly as the Wigan warbler huffs and puffs like a heavyweight gone to seed. ‘Sweet Brother Malcolm’, although boring and mawkish, is slightly better in that it’s just about a fully realised song, although whoever told Ashcroft his Shane McGowan impersonation was worth committing to record was badly mistaken. Sometimes “rough” doesn’t equal “heartfelt”, just “crap”.
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