The Verve: Forth (Parlophone)
Andy Gill, The Independent, 15 August 2008
RARELY CAN RAMPANT self-regard and billowing emptiness have combined to such vacuous effect as they do in the Verve, and particularly in Richard Ashcroft, a singer so driven by the mere idea of rock stardom that he either doesn't want, or know how, to sing about anything that isn't primarily designed to persuade us of his tortured depths.
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