Alone With Everybody - Richard Ashcroft > Reviews > Lack of Verve

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Originality
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Advantages:	One or two good songs .  .  .
Disadvantages:	.  .  . but that's not enough .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

An alternative title for this album could be "Eleven Songs About How Much I Love My Wife", and, to be honest, does anyone really want to listen to that? As a massive fan of The Verve, I was keen to see how Ashcroft would fair without them. Unfortunately, the record he has come up with only reminds me of how amazing his former band were (pre 1997). Christ, I thought Urban Hymns was sanitised, but this...
To be fair, there are one or two decent songs to be found here. I Got My Beat is a quite beautiful ballad, New York's fierce bassline shakes up proceedings a little bit, and latest single C'Mon People has a good groove.
Still, everyone knows that contentment, cups of tea, and long walks with the dog in the countryside do not provide much in the way of inspiration, whereas drink, lorryloads of elephant drugs, and smashing up hotel rooms do. I'm not saying Ashcroft should return to his former hellraising ways, but on this evidence it's obvious that the real spirit of The verve lay with guitarist Nick McCabe. Perhaps Richard should think about giving him a call.