Near-legendary psychedelic-rockers The Verve have posted a new track in the form of a 14 minute jam on NME.com.
The track in question - 'The Thaw Sessions' - was recorded soon after the band announced their reformation. Richard Ashcroft said of the track:
"That's how we learnt to play music. Locked away in a room in Wigan, 16, 17, just jamming. The fact that we did that for 10 or whatever years, that's still there, man, that never disappears. So for this we literally just pressed record and saw what happens. And what happens is The Verve."
Our verdict? We like. It sounds like an extended mix from their earlier days which, to our ears, can only be a good thing. Expect to see an army of disgruntled Q readers complaining about how it doesn't sound like 'Bittersweet Symphony'.
Meanwhile, the band have added another date to their reformation tour - they will play Nottingham Arena on the 11th of December.
what is pysch?
what is pyschedelic?
thanks
Well...
Having listened to this, I'm happy to say that it's like The Verve haven't been away.
They still manage to produce perhaps the most boring, turgid, uninteresting music I've ever heard. I'd call it Dad Rock, but that'd be an insult to most Dads.
14 minutes of my life I'll never get back.
And another thing...
Does anyone actually think Urban Hymns is a good album? The singles are the highlights, after owning the album for a decade I still can't listen to the thing all the way through.
I remember that in some end of the year polls it actually beat OK Computer, which I thought was a travesty at the time. And I was 11.
really good album
Not as good as some of their other works but a good album for sure.
I used to think the same
but about a year ago I gave it a spin and I do think its a really good album. Some of the album tracks- Rolling People, Catching the Butterfly, Space and Time, Weeping Willow, Come On are quality. The others aren't bad. The four singles are superb, no doubt about it.
Not awful...
...just boring. But I agree, there are some good moments spread across their albums. I certainly don't hate them, and will listen to this with open ears. I suspect it will turn out like Ashcroft's solo stuff though, which was horrible.
I don't think Nick Mccabe would agree to reform
if it was Ashcroft-heavy material. He hated Urban Hymns.
monotous drivel.
14 minutes of droning nonsense.
And I haven't even listened to it. I just know.
Thanks for that.
By the same token, I don't like anyone I've never met, any countries I've never been to, or any books I've never read. Which is all of them. Because they're rubbish.
For what little it's worth, I really enjoyed the download. Good to hear them getting back to what they're good at, ie, not horrible horrible ballads.
Dude, guitar-based pop music should be...
... succinct and passionate. Not formless and flabby.
You should know that - you produced some of the best of it in the early noughties (I recently played a Peel Festive 50 from a few years ago... Man, you had it)
Thankyou. :-)
BUT I don't think anyone can say with any real validity what guitar-based music should or shouldn't sound like. Hearing The Verve's first album had as life-changing an effect on me as the first Clash album (and the first Tori Amos, PJ Harvey and These Animal Men albums, come to think of it...). I suppose some of the best Verve stuff is fairly "formless", in that it's obviously written by jamming, with the emphasis far more on the dynamics between bass, drums and guitar than on commercially-sensible verse/chorus/miaow structures and hooks, but to write them off as "nonsense" for caring more about playing music for the absolute love of playing music (I suppose now they can afford to indulge themselves without needing to worry about commercial considerations) is kind of missing the point of what The Verve were originally all about - and what it seems, thank fuck, they're all about again.
Or maybe you just don't like them... which is fair enough. I don't much care for early MBA. :-)
You make some good points
... but all too often observing "the dynamics between bass, drum and guitar" is used as a justification for the exit from the building by Mr. Tune.
Directionless noodling at the expense of meaning and/or pure pop pleasure is always a shame.
And These Animal Men? I had you down as more of a S*M*A*S*H man...
Nah,
S*M*A*S*H were all mouth and no trousers.
Actually, their trousers were quite good.
But the lyrics were rubbish.