Music
A Northern Soul was a change in style for the band, moving from the psychedelia of their earlier work to alternative rock. Guitar Magazine writer Dan Eccleston claimed "the band retreated to their Wigan rehearsal room and plugged in, tuned up and flipped out into that parallel universe wherein the Verve song resides. And the result is A Northern Soul – a record whose deep, dark funky rock makes their actually rather lovely '93 debut A Storm in Heaven sound almost limp. The Verve essence remains – swirling guitar arpeggios, grand rock themes, sprawling structures – but it's warmer, denser and more powerful in every way."
The lyrics took on a more prominent and personal role, with Ashcroft explaining: "Each song is a northern soul going through different emotions. I hear this character all the way through the record; pretty pained, then elated, then arrogant. All facets of that personality are a northern soul. That's what I am." It has been claimed that many of the album's lyrics (particularly those of "History") were connected to Ashcroft's split with his girlfriend, with Ashcroft himself stating: "We were all working on the record and then I went off to London for about three months to sort some things out with my girlfriend at the time. Things didn't go so well, and I got really fucked up for about two of those months, both physically and mentally. When I got back, the strangest thing was that they were playing music that was precisely the way I was feeling and so the two just went together quite easily."
In a retrospective review of the album, Nick Southall of Stylus wrote: "The songs, such as they are, are long and have little structure, the production is murky and raw and harrowing, the tempo is unchanging to the point of testing endurance. There is no joy or even solace to be found in this record, only unforgiving turmoil. It is a traumatic realisation of the hopelessness of human existence, a document of fractured mentalities, the sound of four young men old before their time, scarred by life, already dead once and now desperately striving to be alive for just a moment before it all fades. Songs in the key of pain. Modern, urban, tortured psychedelic soul A wall of noise, a sea of anguish, a masterpiece. On a hillside somewhere in the distance a man screams his desolation at the sky and curses his birth, overcome with fear that this emptiness may be all he can ever know. This record is his scream."
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Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Nearly all the bands are mustered out of service; ours therefore is a novelty. We marched a few miles yesterday on a road where troops have not before marched. It was funny to see the children. I saw our boys running after the music in many a group of clean, bright-looking, excited little fellows.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)