I am a huge fan of The Verve, mainly the first two albums - 'A Storm In Heaven' and 'A Northern Soul' - predominantly because these two had the most influences from Nick McCabe - easily one of the most underrated guitarists of our generation. The early Verve recordings of, 'Voyager 1', 'The Verve EP' and 'No Come Down' were inspirational to me and forged the music I have listened to ever since. That's not to say I didn't like 'Urban Hymns', for me it was a gateway to open up musical tastes from the Oasis, Britpop scene that felt like it was becoming saturated at that time. For many it was the first time they heard The Verve, and then making your way backwards through their back catalogue was mind blowing. The problem with 'Urban Hymns' was it didn't have enough input from Nick McCabe.
So when 'Forth' was about to come out, the anticipation was unreal, especially when they released a 12 minute jam through NME.com - it sounded like they were back on form, experimental, sonically unfathomable and a musical journey. I saw them play Glasto the year of 2008 and they played a load of the oldies (including 'Life's An Ocean' a lyric of which being the title of this blog) and played two songs which were due off the 'Forth' album, 'Sit And Wonder' and 'Love Is Noise'. Both of which set the place alight ... although I do get it when people say the loop on 'Love Is Noise' is simply annoying.
Needless to say, 'Forth' was a bit of a disappointment - what seemed to promise so much with all the precursory released music, left many wondering if the reunion was worth it. Anyhow the band duly split not long after they had completed their tour and Richard went on to do more stuff.
So when I heard through the grapevine Nick had set up a band with Simon Jones (The Verve bassist) and a few others I was excited. I kept an eye on the MySpace, listened to the sampler on there and the excitement built. Then one day whilst on Twitter the Bristol site Live Music Scene tweeted that they had written a review on the new Black Ships EP - I hurried over to the band's MySpace and official site to see when it was released, to low and behold it was a free download from their site.
The EP is a collection of songs all tied together seamlessly, equating to a 25 minute 52 second meandering of incredible guitar sounds, some vocals suprisingly (not from Nick) and an electric violin... which, when I had read about the band having the guy who played the electric violin live on some of the Verve's 'Forth' tour, I wasn't sure how it would work or if it would purely be a token role in a heavily atmospheric sound. To my amazement it fits so well, and leads some of the tracks as a guide through the swirling effects that make the EP the type of release that reveals something different after each listen. This is key, as the length and construction of the EP could turn people off, however, it is simply something that has to be listened to, from beginning to end.
On the run up to the release the band put up the video below... hopefully more of the same to come ahead of any album release...
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