Ack Phhht!

I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by a deluge of new music lately (twenty-five or so albums in the past two months, by my count), and one of the side effects of that is that everything tends to shuffle out of the listening rotation much sooner than I’d like.

So even though it only came out three months ago, I hadn’t actually listened to the Verve’s Forth in several months when I gave it a few more spins this past week.  But man, it sounds pretty good — much better than I gave it credit for when I reviewed it back in September.  Although some of the songs have grown on me, I think the big thing is that I’m finding that the record hangs together and flows much more naturally than I gave it credit for at the time.  Though it probably doesn’t hurt that November’s been a bit of a rough month for me, so the band’s alternating bursts of melancholy and anger are hitting home a little bit harder right now.  Whichever.

“Valium Skies”, incidentally, has become my favorite track on the album.  It just soars with that strange mix of aching sadness and euphoria that the Verve do so well.