Track Listing

1. New Decade
2. This Is Music
3. On Your Own
4. So It Goes
5. Northern Soul
6. Brainstorm Interlude
7. Drive You Home
8. History
9. No Knock On My Door
10. Life's An Ocean
11. Stormy Clouds
12. Reprise

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9782 in Music
• Released on: 1995-07-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Verve's first album, A Storm In Heaven was a little too much like a wet weekend to really live up to its title, dallying in intangible psychedelia. Bolstered by Oasis producer Owen Morris, A Northern Soul delivered a lot more. The opening "A New Decade" was imbued with all the glorious bombast that its title suggested, and "This Is Music" sounded like some furious gospel, with shamanic lead singer Richard Ashcroft bellowing the title like he was administering to his flock. Inconsistencies marred A Northern Soul, however, with "Brainstorm Interlude" hardly even worthy of inclusion, and "Life's An Ocean" simply unrolling as an overlong jam. The album's clincher, surely, is the almighty "History". The Verve's greatest achievement, "History" is an epic, tearful elegy, and to date one of rock music's greatest moments. It alone proves that A Northern Soul is a failed masterpiece. By the next album, Urban Hymns, The Verve had learnt to dispense with the filler. --Louis Pattison

CD Description
Although a fine album in its own right, the popularuty of ANorthern Soul probably owes much to the huge success of Urban Hymns in 1997/8. A collection of swirling, grand epics and expansive landscapes, it is more sprawling, and, many fanswould argue, more inspired than its tighter, commercial successor. Richard Ashcroft's lyrics are undoubtedly less oblique than on the group's debut, A Storm In Heaven. The album'shighlight is 'History', with its fluid guitar and crafted strings. A worthy, if rambling, record, it is significant both musically and as an indication of the group's imminent dissolution, prior to their triumphant return two years later.

Customer Reviews

Repeated listens reveal a brilliant album
The Verve's second LP may have been critically lauded, but small commercial returns and the volatile-at-the-best-of-times relationship between frontman Richard Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe reaching a new low, meant the Wiganers split briefly before reforming to produce rock history with Urban Hymns in 1997. Unsurprisingly the reputation of the band's third album is how most listeners have discovered A Northern Soul, myself being no exception. Recorded under a massive intake of Ecstasy, most of the 12 tracks indulge in protracted, overblown stone rock passages, a far cry from even the most inaccessible sounds of Urban Hymns. Given repeated listens though, A Northern Soul reveals itself to stand apart from its successor as a great record and one that contains some of the group's best work.

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.

Their finest, darkest hour
It makes my blood boil when people talk about this album as a warm up to Urban Hymns. This was the album the Verve were born to make. It's the sound of a band locked on a collision course to the bottom of their souls (yeah I kind of nicked that from 'This is Music', my favourite track here). Every one of the band shines darkly on this album - Salisbury's rock solid rolling drums, Jones' rumbling bass grooves, McCabe's [swear word]ing brilliant vast rain clouds of guitar, and Ashcroft's raw bottled pain. It's also produced perfectly with a real gritty sound throughout (especially the vocals - I can hardly listen to the blandified sugary production of the vocals on Urban Hymns after this).
Yes the slower tracks are worth the asking price alone, but for me this album is all about the white noise/dark grooves of A New Decade, This is Music and the ear-bleeding feedback of the last track.
Urban Hymns to me is Richard Ashcroft with a backing band. This album is The Verve, a [swear word again]ing amazing band from Wigan who no longer really existed by the time they recorded their next album.

from their soul to the speakers to your ears
The most incredible part of (the) Verve's sound was always the amount of raw emotion packed into Nick McCabe's guitar- this is the album where it merges most successfully with Richard Ashcroft's widescreen vision and personal voice.

"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.