A Storm in Heaven is the debut studio album by the English rock band Verve, later the Verve, released on 21 June 1993 on Hut Records. The band had formed between school friends vocalist Richard Ashcroft, bassist Simon Jones, and drummer Peter Salisbury, with guitarist Nick McCabe joining shortly after. After a show in London, they signed to the Virgin Records imprint Hut Records in 1991, which released their first three singles in 1992. Following the appointment of the company Savage and Best as their management, the band recorded their debut album at Sawmills Studios in Cornwall with producer John Leckie. Referred to mainly as a psychedelic album, A Storm in Heaven was largely written in the studio.
"Blue" was released as the lead single from A Storm in Heaven in May 1993; initially, promotion saw them go on a UK tour, perform at Glastonbury Festival, and appear on a European tour with the Smashing Pumpkins. Following the release of the second single "Slide Away" in September 1993, Verve embarked on a headlining US tour and closed out the year on a UK tour with Oasis. They went on a headlining European tour in early 1992, prior to their stint on Lollapalooza, on which Salisbury got arrested and Ashcroft had to be hospitalized. They concluded promotion with a round of festivals in Europe, including the Reading Festival.
A Storm in Heaven received mixed reviews from music critics; though many largely praised the music, others were not content with its lyrical theme of death and its dark sound. Retrospective reviews and biographies of the Verve were more positive, also focusing on the music. The album peaked at number 27 on the UK Albums Chart, going on to be certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in 2014. "Blue" reached number 69 on the UK Singles Chart. In the following years, most of the album's listeners came to it after the release of the band's third studio album, Urban Hymns (1997); the band returned to the sound of the album through various songs on Urban Hymns and their second studio album, A Northern Soul (1995). It has appeared on best-of lists for the shoegaze genre by NME and Pitchfork.
Background
While at school, Richard Ashcroft had the desire to make music but was unable to play any instrument. When he and his school friends Peter Salisbury and Simon Jones attended higher education, they had the idea of starting a band.Baker 2008, p. 18 Sometime later, Ashcroft heard Nick McCabe playing in a practice room at Winstanley College.Baker 2008, p. 19 After Ashcroft's mother bought him a guitar, he started a band with McCabe and a friend as the bassist.Baker 2008, p. 20 They went by the name the Butterfly Effect before it was changed to Raingarden. As Ashcroft was living in Wigan with Jones, and as their exams loomed, he asked Jones and Salisbury if they wanted to join his band. With their addition, the band re-christened themselves as Verve.Baker 2008, p. 22 Practice sessions followed, with them wanting to find their own sound and not bandwagon on the emerging Madchester movement, spearheaded by the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays.Baker 2008, pp. 21, 22 For almost a year, McCabe and Salisbury were unable to play another show, much to the chagrin of Ashcroft. He eventually persuaded the rest of the members to quit their jobs and accompany him on the dole in an effort to make the band work. They subsequently spent most of their time jamming in Wigan, securing frequent shows in the town, and recording a demo while in the house of Jones' parents.Baker 2008, p. 24
At this stage, the Madchester movement had reached an endpoint. Ashcroft said A&R representatives were no longer looking for bands in the North. Coinciding with this, Dave Boyd started working at Virgin Records, accompanied by Miles Leonard, who left his job at Chrysalis Records. Leonard had told the head of A&R at that label about checking out Verve, whom he heard through their demo. After being told no, he shifted to Virgin, who let him travel to see the band in Manchester.Baker 2008, p. 26 Leonard arranged for the band to play a show for the whole A&R department of Virgin in London in July 1991;Egan 1998, p. 25 after this, they signed a publishing deal with Virgin Music. Boyd was moved by the performance that he signed them for,Baker 2008, p. 27 which happened in September 1991.Egan 1998, p. 27 They joined the roster of Hut Records, a subsidiary of Virgin, which consisted of bands from the Madchester scene and other acts that had little support. Their next show in London saw them support Whirlpool; despite not sounding similar to them, Verve were tagged as part of the shoegaze scene.Baker 2008, p. 28 Between April and October 1992, Verve issued their first three singles, "All in the Mind", "She's a Superstar", and "Gravity Grave".Egan 1998, p. 204 During this time, Boyd, now having become the boss at Hut, was concerned for the band's direction and contacted Jane Savage of the PR company Savage and Best, asking if they would like to manage the band.Baker 2008, p. 42 The pair subsequently saw them at a show in London and were impressed, ultimately agreeing to take on the band, serving as both their managers and publicists.Baker 2008, pp. 43, 44
Recording After shows supporting the Black Crowes, Verve set about to record their debut album.Clarke 1998, p. 35 With a DAT machine and a mixing desk in tow, the band went to Wales, where they re-worked all the material they had, only keeping a fraction of it, such as "Slide Away" and "The Sun, the Sea". John Leckie approached Verve about producing them; he was known for his work with the Stone Roses, who were one of Ashcroft's influences. McCabe fixated on Leckie's work with the Fall instead, liking how he refined their sound. Leckie previously saw Verve in London when he initially went to see Whirlpool. Leckie was impressed to the point where he was actively searching gig listings for when they would perform again.Egan 1998, p. 59 Up to that point, he was known for achieving the best sound for newer bands, though he thought that there would be some difficulty in translating their sound onto a recording. Leckie was amazed by their "dynamics, how devastatingly loud they could be, and how quiet and sensitive they would be. At points you could hear a pin drop — and then it would just explode."Baker 2008, p. 47 Despite only having three songs – "Slide Away", "Already There", and "The Sun, the Sea" – newly written at this point, they went to Cornwall with the intent of making an album. The band recorded at Sawmills Studios, a converted mill situated next to the River Fowey, in December 1992 and January 1993. The sessions lasted seven weeks in total, with a break for Christmas 1992. As it was in an isolated area, they could only reach it by boat or by walking down a railway track when the tide was out. If their gear had not arrived by the same boat, they would be forced to wait for 12 hours for the tide to rescind. Its location meant that the band members would not be distracted.Baker 2008, p. 48
Making an album, as opposed to a one-off recording, made the members relax and not force themselves to make something special from the offset. Eight of the album's final songs came about through improvisational jamming. This working method was hit-and-miss productivity-wise, as five days could pass without anything substantial, while two songs might evolve in a brief period of time. Ashcroft compared it to looking at an empty canvas: "... you don't know what you're going to paint, but you know it's going to be great."Egan 1998, p. 64 He was absent for the majority of this writing, though when he was there, he thought of lyrics on the fly. Leckie focused on getting the right atmosphere instead of working with discipline, a method that McCabe preferred, having previously disliked their prior sessions for taking too much time setting up the drums and getting a particular bass sound. Leckie aimed to capture the band's live spirit when he saw them live. John Cornfield did engineering and programming throughout the sessions. Members of Verve did not like contemporary albums for being overproduced and too clean, wanting a "dirty" sound instead for their debut. Ashcroft's working method was to "record as if it's the last thing we're ever going to do, purely because you get the most out of yourselves."Clarke 1998, p. 37 Sometimes, Leckie would alter McCabe's amplifier, only for him to change it back when the former left the room. Leckie had a Shure SM58 microphone facing the speaker cab, and Neumann U 67 directly against the cab.Collins 2001, p. 44 McCabe focused on the sound he got from his amp rather than his guitars, having recently acquired a Mesa/Boogie Mark III. During this time, other musicians were working with digital equipment and disregarding their guitar pedals; McCabe recalled that he found various delay pedals and samplers cheaply and experimented with them, going as far as to say A Storm in Heaven was "essentially me discovering all this equipment. Get a few pedals, see what sounds I could make, wait for a tune to come out of it."
Verve had struggled to record a satisfactory version of "Star Sail", finding prior attempts too clean-sounding. A version, recorded at 4 a.m. while the band was stoned, proved to be a turning point, as McCabe said Leckie helped show the band how they could sound. The initial guitar noise that starts this iteration was made by accident when McCabe, who was not aware they were already recording, was testing if his instrument was in tune. Author Sean Egan, in his book The Verve: Star Sail (1998), wrote that this one note of music symbolised the band's "off-the-cuff approach to the recording and their desire for a dirty sound." Oblivious that Leckie had begun recording the band, they started jamming with an unfinished song, and when they stopped, Leckie stunned them by asking if they wished to listen to it, which they liked and became "Star Sail".Egan 1998, p. 66 This spontaneous method also resulted in "Virtual World", which Ashcroft said was very "loose. We just had the chords – no words whatsoever. ... We got the atmosphere right." Two versions of this song were made, one with a flute and the other with a slide guitar part from McCabe. Leckie suggested the inclusion of horns on some of the songs; he has worked with Kick Horns, a group of session musicians, since the 1980s. They arrived down the railway track late one evening while Verve was playing back the material they had made up to that point. Kick Horns' usual method when working with a group would be to have a meeting or listen to material ahead of them travelling, with them working the following morning. For Verve, Kick Horns began working immediately through the early hours.Baker 2008, p. 49 Leckie mixed the recordings at Sawmills in early 1993; even when this process was underway, Ashcroft continued to write lyrics for the album, prompting their label to ask where the finished album was through aggressive phone conversations. Additional songs were recorded during the sessions that were ultimately left off the finished album, including "6 O'Clock", "No Come Down", "Shoeshine Girl", "South Pacific", "Twilight", and "Where the Geese Go".
Composition and lyrics Title and themes