If ever a band converted a blend of opium and adrenaline into noise, the Verve has achieved one of the closest matches in its grandiose return Fourth. Emerging from the ether after a 10-year breakup (the band's second divide), the original lineup stirs a delicious, mesmerizing potion of crooning pop and stratospheric rock ballads, thanks to frontman Richard Ashcroft's dry yet piercing mix of singing and chatting, Nick McCabe's whirlwind guitar bumbling, Peter Salisbury's thumping tumbles and rolls on drums, and all the psychedelic, spastic, yet uplifting noises that slip through space from the violin swells (recalling the glory days of "Bittersweet Symphony") to the trippy synth buzz and snaps. From the looping keyboard that opens "Sit and Wonder" to the sleepy fade out of "Appalachian Springs," Fourth lures the listener not to pluck single tracks, but to ease into a journey of great heights, and to induce himself into the full hour-and-a-half trip.
Fourth sways through three stages. In the opening two songs, the sound floats in a pristine cellophane coating. The opening track's ever-building guitar swirls elucidate Ashcroft's repeating of "Give me some light, give me some light." In "Love is Noise," - the album's first single - the light shines through six minutes of an electronic-infused loop, skimming along with the background melody of falsetto, mechanical laughs. Though long and repetitive (like most tracks; the shortest is just under five minutes), its catchy vibe mesmerizes and leaves the listener feeling cleansed.
But fuzz seeps through in the second stage of the venture. Pianos pluck, the guitars grow grittier and grittier, and the lyrics drift to more repetitive and abstract spaces, especially when Ashcroft directly addresses the listener in "Judas," as he sings in a Dylanesque rasp, "You know the trip has just begun." A couple of filler tracks lull the charm, especially the disengaging drones of "Rather Be." But in "Noise Epic" - the most aptly titled track of the album - the chaos climaxes in a wondrous eight-minute ballad of fuzz rock, blaring with almost blindingly obvious influences from the distortion of Radiohead's O.K. Computer.
In the exiting stage, the Verve glides slowly back to the earth, beginning the ease-down with "Valium Sky," the most chilled-out track of the album and the most reminiscent of '90s Verve. They land to rest in the eerie, Pink Floyd-peppered conclusion of "Appalachian Springs," in which Aschcroft once again overtly addresses the effect of the album: "Slipping out, slipping in and out of a dream."
Minus the occasional monotony, Aschcroft and the boys have emerged from the shadow of Cruel Intentions and created an album that achieves very nearly what it sets out to do: to uplift the listener from a "world of confusion" (as he asserts in "Rather Be") to the peaks of the stratosphere. Judge its aerial cover, because that's where The Verve's Fourth takes you, from dreaming in opium-soaked fuzz of the clouds to soaring in the enlivening waves of open air. B+
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