Track Listing

1. Star Sail
2. Slide Away
3. Already There
4. Beautiful Mind
5. Sun The Sea
6. Virtual World
7. Make It 'til Monday
8. Blue
9. Butterfly
10. See You In The Next One (Have A Good Time)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12180 in Music
• Released on: 1993-06-21
• Number of discs: 1

From Amazon.com
Five years before the group's Urban Hymns broke the band into the mainstream, The Verve's first full-length effort, A Storm in Heaven, gave incredible insight into the band's ability to mesmerize it's audience. Hypnotic vocals courtesy of vocalist Richard Ashcroft and layered musical textures from the band make for an incredible, memorable album. This is not the stuff of background music but instead best suited to provide the soundtrack for a candlelit, incense-filled Saturday night. Perhaps the band's best effort to date. --Denise Sheppard

CD Description
The first Verve album, A STORM IN HEAVEN, was released in 1993, prior to some legal wrangling necessitating the addition of the definite article to the band's name. Appearing in the wake of the commercial success of the "shoegazer" trend in England, it successfully bridged the gap between the rock affectations of Ride's spectacular GOING BLANK AGAIN and Spiritualised's debut album, both early shoegazing cornerstones.
Building on the spaciousness of their first few singles, A STORM IN HEAVEN marries the Verve's psychedelic leaningsto the sonic whirlwind of Nick McCabe's guitar heroics. Highlights include "The Sun, the Sea", which is peppered with massive, crunching rock sounds, even featuring some hyperactive horns toward the end. "Virtual World", with the addition of flutes to the mix, conjures Jethro Tull caught in an elaborate crystalline guitar sound sculpture. The real winner here, though, is the majestic and enveloping "See You In the Next One (Have a Good Time)", which tones down much of the histrionics that precede it in favour of a dramatic acoustic sound with echoing vocals and McCabe's understated piano.

Customer Reviews

Stormy
This is the Verve at their best. It is the closest you can get (along with the EPs) to resonating those beautiful early Verve performances where songs lasted 20 minutes and your head and heart were taken somewhere else. There will always be a part of me left in the rafters of Sheffield Octogan in 1992. Guitar sounds that chime like distant bells echoing in a dreamy valley(from the best guitarist of the 90's). Drum beats that shuffle beautifully. Bass lines that remain understatedly melodic. And then theres that Ashcroft fellow before he went too ladish (all that C'mon malarchy!!). These were the days when the man would shuffle bare foot on an indian rug looking like a student lost in the late 60's. This is a fantastic album. It doesnt need to be like Urban Hymns. It doesnt need that cockyness of Luck man. It is perfect as it is. Best listened to in a cave to add echo to echo or in a car watching the sun set over the beautiful Derbyshire wilderness. Dont judge it by what happened in the late 90's. Judge it by the innocence of those long 92/93 summers. Epic

The Early Verve Captures the World
By far the best of 'The' Verve albums, it's wild, expansive psychedelic sound removed from the garage, funk and symphonic workouts that followed. John (Stone Roses) Leckie's production has never been better, but this is an atypical example of band democracy at work, before too many drugs combined with Ashcroft's ego and McCabe's mind unpicked everything that the band had built. Highlights include the seamless slide into 'Blue' from 'Make It Till Monday', the relentless percussive thrum of 'Slide Away', and the shimmering silver guitar on 'Already There' and 'Beautiful Mind'. If you like this, check out early singles 'She's a Superstar' and 'Gravity Grave', two more stunners from The Verve's early canon.

Enter a musical dreamland
Out of the many albums i have listened to spanning across heavy metal through seventies rock to modern dance music, the Verves a storm in heaven has got to be one of the best i have listened to.From the opening chord of star sail you know you are going to be launched into a musical fantasy dreamland for the next 45 minutes. Nick McCabes reverb soaked, delay ridden guitar work draws from some of the best psychedelia of the seventies and Richard Ashcrofts soft vocals are more than capable of putting you into a soft mood. I fully reccomend it to anyone who likes to listen to a good bit of clever guitar work and it is most definitely the Verves finest hour