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Alone with Everybody
The bad news: Alone with Everybody, the first solo venture by the Verve's ex-lead singer Richard Ashcroft, is not as good as the Verve's pinnacle departure album, Urban Hymns. The good news: it's really, really close. Urban Hymns's elongated, psychedelic space jams and reflective, occasionally plaintive themes seeped osmotically into the listener's every cell, becoming gloriously inescapable. The melodies on Alone with Everybody remain within the parameters of the Verve's last album, carrying over the massive swells of orchestral strings; mellowed, trippy, blues-influenced guitar licks; and Chris Potter's dense production. Initially, the impact is slightly diminished because Verve fans will find it very familiar. But Alone is less cathartic and more resolute because Ashcroft has found real love. As you'd expect from such an adept and introspective songsmith, Ashcroft's love songs are not schmaltzy. This isn't the kind of love that can be expressed through the ear-splitting wail of a pop diva or the jangly chorus of a college-rock quartet. Songs like "You on My Mind in My Sleep," "Crazy World," and the heart-wrenching "On a Beach," reveal a love that is consuming, complex, fragile, and obtained at the conclusion of an exhausting, painful war with the self. The album sprawls in expansive contentment--a contradiction in terms understood perfectly by anyone who's ever loved so deeply, humbly, and unexpectedly that they've needed nothing else. --Beth Massa
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Tracks| 1 | A Song For the Lovers | | 2 | Get My Beat | | 3 | Brave New World | | 4 | New York | | 5 | You on My Mind In My Sleep | | 6 | Crazy World | | 7 | On A Beach | | 8 | Money To Burn | | 9 | Slow Was My Heart | | 10 | C'Mon People (We're Making It Now) | | 11 | Everybody |
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