An apology
I am really sorry I posted that link to the Verve’s new album. I hadn’t listened yet. They were a really important band for me when I was younger. But Jesus, they shouldn’t let Richie write the lyrics.
And they have a song called “Noise Epic”. You can’t call a song that!!! It’s only 8 minutes long. Oh man. You wish you could say to these guys, look, if it’s about the money, I’ll go and buy another copy “A Storm In Heaven”. Hell, I’ll buy two. Just keep this to yourselves.
The song “Valium Skies”, which ostensibly combines two of my favourite things, valium and the verve, starts out with chimey guitars that sort of recall “stormy high” or “life’s an ocean” but then quickly offends with old “abab rhyming scheme is the only one i know” lyrics of Ashcroft.
“how do you stop yourself from giving in/ when it seems like the whole world is fryin’”
then it has some almost pretty “ahahahas” and a nice guitar arpeggios but then it goes:
“When it comes to my Valium Skies. She don’t mind that I cry” and the guitars start to sound like fucking Coldplay.
And then it just repeats that line and does a fadeout and then thuds to a close. LIke the line is so profound it needs to be repeated over and over.
Seriously. I fucking love this bands old records. I once drove to Seattle to see The Verve play the Key Arena, where they did a 20 minute version of “Bittersweet Symphony”, 5 minutes of which were Richard Ashcroft singing “I’m the last of the great rock and roll men” while doing tequila poppers, and, though that sounds insufferable, it was fucking awesome. He was skirting the line, but pulling it off because it sounded amazing. Now he’s gone all “I am the love messiah” but he just sounds like a pretentious d-bag.
Columbo is okay, I guess. But seriously. Dogshite.
