A Northern Soul [CASSETTE]

Opening with the gleefully bombastically titled A New Decade and This Is Music Nick McCabe's walls of guitars together with Richard Ashcroft's searing vocals make for an utterly inspired opening, the latter containing the best opening line in a song ever! All the energy and vitriol of Urban Hymns is here, but not the slick, structure or relatively unambiguous tunes. These are acid rock rages and swirling atmospheres punctuated by Ashcroft's impassioned, often bizarre lyrics with the repeated ode, "Too busy staying alive/ Too busy living a lie" during the effects laden title track. Different yes, but certainly not worse. This illusive psychedelic style is present almost everywhere. Tracks that sound lackluster, even downright awful after a couple of listens, prove to be inspiring, powerful or beautiful, especially with the gentle washes of Drive You Home and Life's An Ocean. Even the thick, virtually indecipherable instrumentals of Brainstorm Interlude and Reprise, (usually the sort of thing tagged on at the end of albums) turn out to deserve more than use of the skip button.

The album takes lovely, heart breaking acoustic turns for On Your Own, a gentle ballad, beautifully ruing the solitary existence of life. But then out of the blue springs History, a song so brilliant it surpasses anything on this or any other album. Quite simply, one of the best songs in modern rock, The Verve's finest moment and without a doubt the greatest song virtually never heard. Released as a single after the band's first split, it was then their biggest chart success: wheezing to Number 24 in September 1995... about 23 places below where it should have charted. Its style it makes stick out like a sore thumb amongst a collection consisting mostly of psychedelic rock of, but its genius is undeniable. The beautiful string arrangements (by Wil Malone) and gentle acoustic guitars form the perfect backdrop to Ashcroft's passionate, mournful vocals. Inspired by the break-up with a long-term girlfriend, the five-minute outpouring is one of modern music greatest lyrics; since he has failed at love, he has failed at his life: "In every man/ In every hand/ In every kiss you understand/ That living is for other men." History is a shattering image of such failure.

Although History and On Your Own are definitely A Northern Soul's highpoints, the album has much, much more to offer, beyond these beautiful, accessible ballads. You just have to stick with it. Fans who purchased it back in 1995 can justifiably feel smug over all us fools who only discovered it after hearing the monolithic Urban Hymns two years later. This album stands by itself as a great work. On its own terms A Northern Soul is a masterpiece of psychedelic rock: ambiguous, pompous, frustrating, but ultimately brilliant and rewarding. The last thing it deserves is to be labeled solely as a dress rehearsal for Urban Hymns.

"Northern Soul" is not an album you can put on in the background- it grabs the attention from the very first moment and won't let go throughout 12 tracks of emotional peaks and troughs, ranging from the overblown and anthemic swagger of "This Is Music" to the fragile sway of "Life's An Ocean". The force and subtlety of the way the band plays as a whole on this album make the Ashcroft led "Urban Hymns" sound flimsy by comparison, and only those with very short attention spans could think the band ever bettered "History".

It's the best album I've ever heard, and one I wouldn't live without- whether you can or not is up to you.