The sessions
gained notoriety for the stories that emerged from the time, including
Ashcroft going missing for five days and him allegedly totalling a car
on the studio's lawn. In the first three weeks, they had finished 15
tracks; after this point, the situation soured as guitarist Nick McCabe grew exhausted from dealing with the other members frequently partying and taking ecstasy, in addition to vocalist Richard Ashcroft
and Morris shouting and destroying objects. At one point, McCabe began
to have a different working schedule from the others, starting at 10–11
a.m. while the rest of the band started at 6 p.m.
Described as alternative rock, Britpop, psychedelic rock, and psychedelic soul, Ashcroft said A Northern Soul revolved around one person experiencing various emotions. He wrote material for it after the end of a six-year relationship, using a portastudio at co-manager John Best's house over several weeks. The Verve started promotion with a UK gig supporting Oasis in April 1995, followed by one in France two days later. After McCabe was injured in an altercation with a bouncer, a month's worth of shows were cancelled. The album spawned three singles "This Is Music", "On Your Own", then Ashcroft announced his departure from the band, which the press reported as if they were breaking up. "History" was the third and final single from the album.
The Verve released their debut studio album, A Storm in Heaven, it entered a music scene dominated by grunge, sitting against the emergence of British bands Blur and Suede. Shortly afterwards, frontman Richard Ashcroft said he wanted to record the follow-up as soon as possible. In 1993, the band promoted the album with a UK tour, a European tour with the Smashing Pumpkins – by which point they were writing songs for their next album – a US tour with Acetone, and ending with a UK tour with Acetone and up-and-comers Oasis. The Verve's notoriety as troublemakers was exacerbated by connecting themselves with Oasis.
Issues plagued the members during the stint, including drummer Peter Salisbury getting arrested and Ashcroft being taken to the hospital for not drinking enough fluids. The grind of touring the US eventually took its toll on Ashcroft and guitarist Nick McCabe, with the pair not being on friendly terms. Throughout that year, interpersonal relationships between members of the Verve grew apart, spurred on by the ballooning popularity of their friends in Oasis.
Since the recording of their debut album, Ashcroft had some life-changing experiences that would fuel his songwriting. Towards the end of 1994, Ashcroft and his girlfriend Sarah Carpenter ended their six-year relationship when the latter became infatuated with one of the band's roadies, Andy Burke, who was also one of Ashcroft's best friends. As Ashcroft was dealing with this, Jones was also going through mental struggles. The latter found it difficult to acclimatise at home in Wigan after Lollapalooza and the US in general. McCabe was also breaking up with his pregnant girlfriend Monica; he was growing weary of others around him. Ashcroft fled to London and, subsequently, the countryside without informing anyone. Ashcroft attempted to reconcile with her in London over a period of three months. For two of those three, he was mentally and physically exhausted. When he reconvened with the rest of the band, they were performing the music that he felt conveyed the emotions he was experiencing, allowing the two aspects to go together with relative ease. Ashcroft stayed with Best, who was dating Lush frontwoman Miki Berenyi, for a period of six-to-eight weeks. Best had a portastudio in his frontroom that Berenyi used for making songs, which Ashcroft used when borrowing her acoustic guitar to write for himself.
When the band wanted a different producer for their second album, Noel Gallagher of Oasis proposed Owen Morris, who had co-produced Definitely Maybe. Morris himself shared a similar perspective on the rock and roll lifestyle as the Verve. Ashcroft said they went with him as he was around their age and equally as intense as the rest of the band in "everything we do, lifestyle, music, everything ..." As the members wanted to avoid repeating mistakes that they had made on A Storm in Heaven, they set about writing prior to entering a studio. The band holed up in their former rehearsal space in Wigan, which Ashcroft dubbed a "black hole, a claustrophobic pit." The space was located in a dark industrial warehouse, which they felt was inspirational to the point that Ashcroft and McCabe put aside their personal issues. The members drove around during the night on occasion, seeking further inspiration. Ashcroft learned of a tale from Keith Richards where he talked about the Rolling Stones being mocked by Dean Martin, which he connected to and used as an influence: "That's what happened to us ... we just thought, 'Fuck you all, we're gonna delve into our black hole in Wigan and make the greatest music you've heard in your life.'" Morris, whose visibility as a producer increased after Definitely Maybe, visited the band during one of their rehearsals, feeling enthusiastic about what he was hearing.
Discussing the album, Ashcroft said the "doors have opened for me personally with my writing. We've been liberated. Touring, you get lost on a rock and roll adventure. You're on the Stardust trip. You're in the mansion in your head with the white robes on doing rock operas called 'Woman'. But then you come home and it's time to get twenty Regal and a pastie and assess who you are. That's why the new album's got more soul to it. It's modern Northern blues." Egan said a possibility for the album's title was how the Verve viewed their sound as the "result of a fundamental sincerity." Ashcroft said the album revolved around one person experiencing various emotions: "pretty painted, then elated, then arrogant. All facets of that personality are a northern soul." Egan said this character was Ashcroft incognito, writing that a few critics were sceptical about how an individual "'soul' could have gone through such torment as to inspire such desolate songwords.
On the album's lyrics, Ashcroft said that, as a whole, it was him "asking myself: 'Who the fuck am I?' Am I the guy in 'This Is Music' standing tall in the world with these huge guitars around him like the king of rock 'n' roll, or am I the guy in 'A Northern Soul' who's wasted and desperate, or am I the guy in 'On Your Own', who's in between life and death, or am I the guy in 'Life's an Ocean' imagining the future and buying feelings from a vending machine, am I this future shock guy? But I'm all of them, you see. It’s dangerous to fracture your personality too much, but that’s what it was."
The opener "A New Decade" came across as akin to the sound of A Storm in Heaven, with Ashcroft's voice fading in, "woo-woohing gently somewhere far off in the distance. Then, suddenly, the guitars kick the metaphorical doors in and Richard bellow the title like he's announcing the start of a whole new era." Baker noted that the most prominent change compared to past material is Ashcroft's vocals being placed higher in the mix while the guitars sounded aggressive, "This Is Music" had a "belligerent spirit that was immediately very apparent. Instead of singing vague platitudes about the sky and the sun, as he had in the past, Richard was suddenly addressing the real world." It was Ashcroft's first political song, originating after he met an Eton alumni. Ashcroft was bewildered by the number of opportunities open to him simply because he attended private school. He thought it was akin to someone starting the journey of life ninety metres ahead of everyone else. Ashcroft said the song's narrator was someone who had to fight to get what they wanted in any given situation.
"On Your Own" marks the band's first ballad track, which Clarke wrote "left a disturbingly uneasy feeling about the ultimate solitude of life." "So It Goes" harkens back to the sound of A Storm in Heaven. In the song, Hogwood said Ashcroft divulges self-doubt amongst the frequent guitar theatrics, with him trying to place distance between the rest of the Verve and himself. "A Northern Soul" evoked the sound of Funkadelic, the song came across as "utterly rock 'n' roll without having any recognisably rock 'n' roll riffs, structure or melody." The song was influenced by Ashcroft learning about Gallagher disappearing when Oasis were on tour in the US the previous year.
"Brainstorm Interlude" was the Verve "boiling over and freaking out. There are great moments but they’re bobbing in a sea of frantic noodling. It sounds like they were jamming to try and find a song, one didn’t appear but the resulting chaos was too good to ignore." "Drive You Home" is a country ballad in the vein of A Storm in Heaven's closing track, "See You in the Next One (Have a Good Time)", which had a reminiscent of the work of Chris Isaak. "History" did not fit on the album, suggesting that it would have been more beneficial on the band's third studio album, Urban Hymns, it was an important track in their career, marking the first occasion where strings served as one of the defining characteristics of their recordings. The strings were arranged by Wil Malone, known at the time for contributing to "Unfinished Sympathy" (1991) by Massive Attack.
On "No Knock on My Door", Ashcroft imitates the vocal style of Liam Gallagher; The machismo that John Best talked about is in full-effect but you can hear him expending his last drop of strength." Williams, meanwhile, thought that Ashcroft was doing a satisfactory "impression of Shaun Ryder in a launderette as raw riffs lurch and destroy around him." For the remainder of the album, the energy of the songs drops."Life's an Ocean" sees a man with a soul living in a soulless society; as Egan wrote, the chacarter's humanity is taken from him via constant commercialism. One of its verses was influenced by the band touring across the US. Ashcroft said that following six weeks in the country, he was unable to look at any advertisements as he could not work out who they were selling to, remarking that it was alarming. "Stormy Clouds" continues the same theme as "Life's an Ocean", though conveying it in a better way: "drifting in a dreamlike fashion before the rhythm section subtly accelerates, pulling the song forward like a tractor dragging a sports car off a muddy field." King wrote that the album nears its end on a moment of fatigued realisation, seeing the "'new horizons' behind the 'Stormy Clouds' and its winding down instrumental reprise, where McCabe unfurls a soul-searching" guitar solo for six minutes, reminiscent of "May This Be Love" (1967) by Hendrix. For the album's closer, "(Reprise)", Wilding was surprised by McCabe's guitar playing as it took over the rest of the music, altering the "language of its discourse upside down.
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