The overall sound of The Verve’s fourth studio album, titled Forth, of all things, isn’t anything especially new or innovative, but The Verve stay true their early nineties Britpop (Oasis, Blur) roots in creating their first album in ten years. The band’s long awaited follow up to their international hit album Urban Hymns (1998), is musically vivid and proves that The Verve haven’t lost much in terms of talent in their extended vacation.

Singer Richard Ashcroft perhaps sounds better than he ever has, singing in a slightly lower range than his previous high-pitched whine. Guitarist Nick McCabe signals his return to the band by returning his characteristically effect-laden riffs, while bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury are solid and provide continuity through the rhythm section.

The album opens with “Sit and Wonder”, a track that provides a powerful, if not excessively reverbed, guitar intro by McCabe which is followed by the first single, “Love is Noise” a catchy tune that gives radio stations something else to play other than “Bittersweet Symphony” (the song that gave The Verve its first U.S. hit along with various lawsuits). Track 6, “I See Houses”, has a dark keyboard intro and Track 7, “Noise Epic”, gives us the fastest song on the album.

Lyrically, it’s nothing life changing, with verses such as, “I sit and wonder, I often wonder/I sit and wonder about the things she does/I sit and wonder, I often wonder/I’ve been waiting for this moment to come”. However, Ashcroft’s lyrics are catchy and with songs like “Numbness” and the before mentioned “I See Houses” provide commentary on his native urban, British landscape.

The Verve can still play their instruments and craft songs that are both strange and catchy, however, Forth has one major flaw: it gets boring. All but one song on the album are over five minutes long, three of the ten tracks clocking in at over 7 minutes and 30 seconds. Very few tracks ever truly pick up the tempo or provide much variation in the musical arrangement, nor have definitive endings. They tend to drag. This combination creates lulls in the album, especially during extended outroes after the lyrics have already ended. In many cases, if the tracks were cut by a couple of minutes, the overall quality of each song would not be affected or even could be improved.

The fastest song by far, “Noise Epic”, which has an epic length of 8 minutes 14 seconds, still takes nearly six and a half minutes till the speed up. The slow to mid tempos of most of the songs, along with the overall running length of an hour and four minutes, can easily provide a turn off for people who are not used to or do not enjoy long and more chill songs.

If you are a huge fan of The Verve, you’re probably going to like Forth. Then again, if you’re a huge fan of The Verve, you’ve been waiting for it for a decade. If you like Dragonforce, than this isn’t for you. This album is best listened to while doing something else, that way the best parts of each song (the first 4 minutes) can be focused on and rest ignored.