Urban Hymns - The Verve

Well as I'm reviewing my favorite albums I can hardly leave this one out can I. This one gets up there in many people's Top tens. Not sure if it quite makes mine. I took me along time to get into the Verve and by the time I bought this album I had heard all the hype and was expecting something amazing. It was very good, don't get me wrong. But maybe not just as good as I was expecting! So this is what I make of the music; 1. Bitter Sweet Symphony - A masterpiece, quite simply. This has to be one of the most well known songs in British history, soon as that iconic violin kicks in, you know your in for a treat. Awesome! 10/10 2. Sonnet - I do ...  Read the complete review

The Verve were a magnificent band, and A Northern Soul is a twentieth century masterpiece. But this... This album is a let down. For two weeks as an 18-year-old, this album ruled my life, but now... The events surrounding its release were more a part of that euphoria than the actual music. Urban Hymns is bereft of the passion, the anger, the utter inability to compromise that made A Northern Soul so staggeringly good. Instead we get an over-produced, slick piece of target-market mush, shiny and empty. Posturing over passion, dull singer-songwriter tedium over explosive, expressive inter-band telepathy. Richard Ashcroft, over the course of The Verve's three albums ...  Read the complete review

The Verve released Urban Hymns in 1997 to great reviews from the public and the critics. Three years on I still regularly listen to what I consider to be in the top 5 albums of the nineties. This was the follow up to “Northern Soul” and was released after the band had reformed. Bitter Sweet Symphony (Single) This is a great track to open the album with. It starts off quietly and builds up into a great tune that you can’t help humming along to. The lyrics are also great as they explain the problems that make life a “Bitter Sweet Symphony”. This is a tune that most people will recall and it’s a pity that The Verve ...  Read the complete review

In British music 1997 was the year of The Verve, atleast in terms of popularity (Radiohead's far better 'OK Computer' was overshadowed) that made dents in the year due to mainly two classic singles, a interest from the press who previously didn't care before, and a history that was finally coming to and end - permanently. Apart one split before, The Verve reformed plus one new member and delivered the Chris Potter and Youth (Killing Joke) produced 'Urban Hymns'. You must've been in a coma in '97, if you hadn't heard of anything about this album. This is the last Verve album, probably ever now. The thing that first ...  Read the complete review

This double Brit-awarding album is totally classic. After the Verve broke up, they got back together in '97 to make Urban Hymns. They dissolved shortly afterwards, and Richard Ashcroft (band-leader, lead vocals, guitar, song-writer) has a solo carraer. The singles from Urban Hymns are Bitter Sweet Symphony (everyone's heard that. You know, the one with the violins!)Lucky Man (another clssssic) and, ofcourse, Now the Drugs Don't work. Contrary to common beleif this is not that depressing an album. Yes some of the songs are pretty sad, the lyrics are not exactly cheery, but some of the tunes are happy, and in some there's a sense of hope (admittedly in ...  Read the complete review