A Storm In Heaven

Before The Verve became stadium-sized, they were a Wigan band trying to dissolve rock into weather, and this debut catches guitars turning to vapor in real time.

"Star Sail" opens the record not with a riff but with Nick McCabe's guitar smeared into a slow tide, and Richard Ashcroft sings like a man broadcasting from somewhere offshore. That refusal to plant its feet is the album's real subject — "Slide Away" and "Beautiful Mind" keep threatening to become anthems and then drifting sideways into haze instead. Even the live "Gravity Grave" from Glastonbury stretches and warps rather than tightening for a crowd. What you hear is a group more interested in atmosphere than the choruses fame would later demand, and it makes this the least calculated thing they ever put out.