Happy 25th Anniversary to The Verve’s second studio album A Northern Soul, originally released June 20, 1995.
"Each song is a northern soul going through different emotions. I hear this character all the way through the record; pretty pained, then elated, then arrogant. All facets of that personality are a northern soul. That's what I am." – Richard Ashcroft, Alternative Press, September 1995
My undying affection for The Verve’s 1997 critical and commercial breakthrough Urban Hymns—my all-time favorite album, mind you—is well-documented here in these pages of Albumism. But while millions of others invariably succumbed to the magic of the band’s third studio affair and their ubiquitous, massive single “Bitter Sweet Symphony” in particular, I always wonder how many of them are as familiar with the two excellent albums that preceded it.
Released in June 1993, A Storm In Heaven formally introduced the band not to the masses, but rather to the notably smaller contingent of discerning listeners and critics who connected to their penchant for melodic dissonance and shoegaze-indebted soundscapes. Despite the expert musicianship on display (thanks in large part to the supremely gifted and innovative guitarist Nick McCabe), coupled with the allure and dichotomy of frontman Richard Ashcroft’s aloof yet endearingly ambitious disposition, the sweeping songs that comprise the group’s debut LP are decidedly a far cry from chart-friendly fare.
Two years later, nearly to the day, A Northern Soul’s arrival signified a tipping point for the band, both creatively and professionally. Comprised of more conventional rock song structures relative to A Storm In Heaven, their sophomore jaunt showcased a more sweeping, grandiose, and polished sound, exchanging the neo-psychedelia come-down compositions for more overtly anthemic arrangements and lucid, confessional lyrics by Ashcroft.
Interviews with the band around the time of A Northern Soul’s release reinforce that they were unabashedly aspiring for greatness with their second studio effort and convinced that they had achieved it. "We know it’s a special record," Ashcroft proclaimed with conviction in a June 1995 interview with Select magazine. "It’s not throwaway, it’s got soul, it’s come from us and what we’ve been through. We will be put up there with The Stone Roses and other greats.”
Beyond reflecting upon the band’s musical maturation and hubris at the time, it’s worthwhile taking a moment to consider the broader context of the UK music world in the intervening period between A Storm In Heaven and A Northern Soul.
Hailing from Manchester but also seemingly out of nowhere, at least to the casual music consumer, two Mancunian brothers had completely changed the game in 1994. Their rapid ascent resulted from their thrilling convergence of heavy guitar-driven melodies, an undeniably charismatic lead voice in one Liam Gallagher, instantly unforgettable lyrics courtesy of his elder brother, songwriting legend-in-the-making Noel, and a tabloid-friendly sibling rivalry to boot. Indeed, when the brothers Gallagher and their bandmates unleashed the breakthrough debut album Definitely Maybe emblazoned with the now iconic Oasis moniker in the waning days of summer 1994, it rejuvenated the British rock scene and raised the bar sky high for all of the other bands with similar aspirations of that elusive holy grail of commercial and critical success.
Rewind to the previous year before super-stardom beckoned, and the then-fledgling Oasis provided support for The Verve’s December 1993 tour in conjunction with A Storm In Heaven. Ashcroft and the Gallaghers found kindred spirits in each other and their bond seems to have been crystallized, at least publicly, when The Verve frontman wrote A Northern Soul’s distortion-fueled title track as a reverential ode to Noel. More broadly, the song’s narrative examines someone trying to find greater purpose and substance in his life, central themes that have characterized both Gallagher’s and Ashcroft’s songwriting repertoire to date.
In response to “A Northern Soul,” Noel wrote “Cast No Shadow,” which featured on Oasis’ second album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? (1995) and was “dedicated to the genius of Richard Ashcroft” as documented in the LP’s sleeve notes. “In a way, it’s about all my friends who are in groups,” Noel confided to Select magazine in 1995. “We are bound with the weight of all the words we have to say. We’re always looking for more.”
No small wonder, then, that The Verve enlisted the studio expertise of Owen Morris—who mixed and mastered Definitely Maybe, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? and Be Here Now (1997)—for A Northern Soul. Though the finished product ultimately arrived unscathed, the recording experience was fraught with various challenges and tensions in the quest to refine the band’s evolving sound. “They don't really need a producer, because they will do producer's heads in,” Morris admitted to Guitar magazine in a July 1995 interview. “They did my head in, completely and utterly. There you go. That's life. It's a fantastic album at the end of the day, but it's not a process that I'd ever want to go through again.”
Whereas A Storm In Heaven is an escapist trip designed for sliding away from life’s many demands, to reference one of the album’s standout songs, A Northern Soul is more deeply personal and introspective. It’s emblematic of a band still attempting to define their identity and chart the course of their career after getting a taste of the limelight and indulging in the vices that invariably come along with this heightened attention. At the same time, Ashcroft had just concluded a six-year relationship, so he may very well have been in more self-reflective spirits as a result of his newfound bachelorhood.
Three official singles were released from the album and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more dynamic trio of compositions than this one. On “This Is Music,” a headrush of McCabe’s crunchy guitars segues into Ashcroft’s defiant opening declaration, “I stand accused just like you / for being born without a silver spoon.” Later, he confesses that “If love is a drug / Then I don't need it,” evoking Roxy Music’s 1975 single “Love Is The Drug” while rejecting its premise in favor of proclaiming his independence.
Released one week prior to the album’s unveiling, “On Your Own” is an arresting, albeit sobering acoustic song that elevates Ashcroft’s voice and lyrics to the forefront, as he grapples with reconciling the unavoidable reality of solitude (“You come in on your own / And you leave on your own / Forget the lovers you've known / And your friends on your own”) and the inherent desire for another to make his life complete (“All I want is someone who can fill the hole / In the life I know / In between life and death / When there's nothing left”).
Following a swelling, string-laden overture that augurs similar sounds to come on Urban Hymns, the symphonic “History” finds the melancholic Ashcroft referencing William Blake’s 1794 poem London in the first verse (“I wander lonely streets / Behind where the old Thames does flow / And in every face I meet / Reminds me of what I have run from”). Listen attentively enough and you’ll detect background handclaps in the song’s latter half, supplied by none other than Liam Gallagher.
While these three singles were selected for obvious reasons, a handful of other standout tracks abound across the entirety of the 12-song affair. My personal favorite of the lot is “Life’s An Ocean,” one of the more percussive offerings with noticeably more subdued guitar play accompanying Ashcroft’s examination of life’s vicissitudes and his feelings of unfulfillment (“Imagine the future / Woke up with a scream / I was buying some feelings / From a vending machine / Say that I will see / Something more than I have / There's something inside of me / Crying out for something else”).
The album-opening “A New Decade” finds Ashcroft contemplating rebirth atop McCabe’s insistent riffs, while “So It Goes” operates as the thematic extension of “On Your Own” with lyrical echoes in the form of “So it goes / You come in on your own in this life / You know you leave on your own.”
A slow-burning ode to addressing the unattainable object of his affection, “Drive You Home” could be interpreted as Ashcroft’s declaration to Kate Radley, the former Spiritualized keyboardist and now his wife of 25 years dating back to 1995 who had previously been romantically involved with Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce.
Indeed, A Northern Soul represented a sizeable leap for The Verve in their journey toward the fame and favor they rightfully believed they deserved. However, within less than two months following the album’s arrival, the group disbanded following their August 6, 1995 performance at the T in the Park festival, largely as the result of ongoing conflict between the band and McCabe, who arguably had the toughest time dealing with the demands of being in a band on the rise.
“I was a total emotional wreck,” McCabe explained to The Face in September 1997. “It got to the point that all I had in common with the rest of them was the music. My home life was a disaster and I didn't feel comfortable anywhere. Even when I went back to Wigan, I stayed in my room all the time. My mum was telling me I was psychotic and I needed help from the doctor. She'd be shouting 'What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?' Then she'd go out and I'd be throwing chairs around, smashing things up. It hit me how fucked up I was. All I could do was blather emotional bollocks.”
In the same interview, Ashcroft stated that “(breaking up) was a mixture of sadness and regret, and relief that we would have some time away." Yet this “time away” proved ephemeral, as within a few weeks of the split, Ashcroft, bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury reunited to plot the course of what would eventually become their magnum opus, Urban Hymns. In McCabe’s absence, they recruited Simon Tong to fulfill guitar duties for the project, but later convinced McCabe to rejoin the band, which remained a quintet through the release and supporting tour for their third album.
Cracks in the band’s already-bruised dynamic soon reappeared, however, with McCabe fleeing the fold while on tour in June 1998 and the group officially calling it quits in April 1999. Nine years later, they returned for their fourth and presumably final studio album Forth, released in August 2008, but by August of the following year, The Verve parted ways once again.
The story of The Verve’s fragmented career is indeed a bittersweet one, with, paradoxically, expectations exceeded and promise unfulfilled. But though we may never see them make amends for one more go at it, the legacy of the four studio albums they created together is all but guaranteed to endure in the hearts, minds and souls of those of us who fell under their spell along the way.
This is music.
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