Overall, two moods flourish - the visceral, frazzled psychedlia of "Noise Epic", "Columbo" and "Numbness" - the former pulling up somewhere between Queens Of The Stone Age and a youthful Bad Seeds. In juxtaposition, the campfire gentility of "Rather Be" and "Judas", both of which bearing the marks of an Ashcroft pushing hard for melody and reminding that this is the band who created the classic, mirror diving lysergic beauty of "Man Called Sun".
Much has changed since then. To their credit there is only one really uncomfortable moment - the mom-and-pop harmonics of "Valium Skies", never trust a song which contains the words "The air I breathe" - but on closer "Appalachian Springs" things begin to pull together, the words part monologue, part poem, all four members lining up behind each other in something resembling the formation which they probably envisaged over a year ago. Like the rest though, it deliberately fails to seek or draw any kind of conclusion.
Inevitably, given the baggage, the talk is not of how good, but how long. Ashcroft himself declared that the acid test of any comeback was for the reformed to get back in the saddle; undeniably it's a nettle which many of the Verve's quixotic forebears have failed to grasp. That they are an extraordinary band was never in question, constituted or not, permanent or not. That Forth fails to satisfy is however inevitable given the creative schism which followed their last release. Proud of its incongruity, had some Minnesotan solo artist recorded it in his mother's barn it would probably have been hailed as a classic. That it wasn't, and that the progenitors took a step back from the precipice of populist mediocrity is also to be admired. So if not so good, how long? Ashcroft's mojo is undoubtedly out of the bottle, but for as long as it continues to sacrifice itself for the cause, we may see things reach a state of temporary permanence for a while to come.
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