Pity or detest as you may Hippy Dicky’s output thus far this century, there’s something that keeps us rooting for him. Perhaps we shouldn’t be swayed so easily, but it’s only the sort of thing that’s pushed the likes of the Arctic Monkeys up from colloquial pub-punk to iPod-melting icons of cool. It’s the kind of thing that is usually the preserve of the young and reckless, that only usually gets smothered or exchanged or ridiculed as bands push their rightful retirement age and beyond. The sort of thing that common sense and experience has a habit of putting in check. But still, years after The Verve dismantled, taking with them the engine room that had been driving their soul (it had been in need of a refit for the latter part of the decade as it was), and he won’t stop beating his chest as if the fire burns on undimmed towards the revolution. To Richard Ashcroft a better world is nothing that can’t be cracked with the right combination of minor chords and rough empathetic crooning.
Because, as he stated previously, this is music. And, as he abridges now, ‘Music Is Power’, which he sings with such unfaltering posture over a repetitive, rousing orchestral refrain that you know it to be true – even if not with quite the same gravity that it is delivered. It’s relatively akin to ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ in style and composition, only significantly less anthemic and zeitgeist seizing. But it is carried by its insistent purity, and it’s that quality – his admirable optimism, his want to better the world’s wrongs – that is infectious.
When he’s focussed, like on the brass-driven sub-gospel blast of opening track ‘Why Not Nothing?’ – taking out religious institutional absurdity and imploring us to put the “God squad in the dock, where they belong” – he really holds you, nay shakes you even. Much the same occours on the title track, one of few truly captivating moments on the record, where he breaks from the script for a slice of empowering ‘Screamadelica’ ambience, regaining some magic and sounding like he could indeed hold those keys.
Those are, though, exceptions, not the rule. Seeing fit to squander his attentions on the oldest chestnut, l-o-v-e, he loosens his grip and ambles into the world where the main reason he still makes headlines is because his number’s in Chris Martin’s blackberry. And it’s still valid to demand comparisons with The Verve, whose early heights remain patently unobtainable for the man on his current form, they are the reason that he has the luxury to continue pursuing this dream. ‘Why Do Lovers?’, like much else on the album, is an adequate ballad in the ‘Lucky Man’ vein , but you do feel that with perhaps Spiritualized’s guiding hand, or Nick McCabe back casting wicked flourishes as a backdrop, it could have become something. As it is, it just sort of evaporates. He has the strength, or at least the blind foolhardiness, to lead. That’s not in doubt. Only the truth is that alone he leads noting much at all.