Urban Hymns

Product Information

Less than a month after their Haigh Hall coronation, a disgruntled McCabe left the band once again, prior to a North American summer arena tour.

Allen Klein, who owned the copyrights to the Rolling Stones' early work, refused clearance for the sample; following a lawsuit, the Verve ceded the songwriting credits and royalties. By April 1999, however, renewed tensions within the band, particularly between Ashcroft and McCabe, would lead the Verve to split up for a second time, at the height of their success. McCabe rejoined the band soon after, however, and Tong remained in the band also considered as the fifth member; this makes the album the only one that the band recorded as a five-piece. Released during a remarkable year for alt-rock, during which era-defining titles such as Radiohead’s OK Computer and Spiritualized’s Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space were also issued, The Verve’s Urban Hymns remains one of the most seminal albums of the 90s.Of course, as the lyrics to “Bitter Sweet Symphony” attested, the Verve had at that point become well accustomed to life’s cruel twists and unforgiving ironies.

Urban Hymns is the third studio album by English alternative rock band the Verve, released on 29 September 1997 on Hut Records. With the likes of the widescreen ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’, ‘Lucky Man’ and ‘Sonnet’, The Verve incorporated a new style of songwriting to sit alongside their established groove-laden style, while ‘The Rolling People’ and ‘Catching The Butterfly’ tapped into the neo-psychedelic soundscapes the band had perfected since their debut album. It’s not just that The Verve never looked especially well-placed to make the last great Britpop record. Boasting the remastered album alongside period B-sides and a flood of previously unreleased live recordings – including the group’s landmark hometown performance at Haigh Hall, Wigan, on 24 May 1998 – the 5CD+DVD box set is due for release on 1 September.At Richard Ashcroft’s instigation, string arranger Wil Malone ( Massive Attack, Depeche Mode) was brought in and his swirling scores added a further dimension to a number of the album’s key tracks, including “The Drugs Don’t Work” and “Lucky Man. By the end of the year, the group had collapsed under the weight of Ashcroft’s famously tumultuous relationship with guitarist Nick McCabe, right when the single “History” was providing them with their highest chart position to date. This twentieth anniversary reissue of the album is suitably epic in its presentation, although anyone who doesn’t consider themselves a Verve diehard may find much of it to be extraneous. Track 13, "Come On", ends at 6:34, and a hidden track "Deep Freeze" starts at 13:01 after a period of silence.