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. Sometime later, Ashcroft heard Nick McCabe playing in a practice room at Winstanley College. After Ashcroft's mother bought him a guitar, he started a band with McCabe and a friend as the bassist. 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. 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. 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.
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. Leonard arranged for the band to play a show for the whole A&R department of Virgin in London in July 1991; after this, they signed a publishing deal with Virgin Music. which happened in September 1991. 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. Between April and October 1992, Verve issued their first three singles, "All in the Mind", "She's a Superstar", and "Gravity Grave". 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. 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.
Recording
After shows supporting the Black Crowes, Verve set about to record their debut album. 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".<!-- page 3 --> John Leckie approached Verve about producing them; he was known for his work with the Stone Roses, who were one of Ashcroft's influences. 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." Despite only having three songs – "Slide Away", "Already There", and "The Sun, the Sea" 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.
thumb|left|alt=A building with a dock area for boats, surrounding by trees and dried-up river bed|[[Sawmills Studios, located next to the River Fowey, is where Verve spent seven weeks recording A Storm in Heaven.]]
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. He was absent for the majority of this writing, though when he was there, he thought of lyrics on the fly. Sometimes, Leckie would alter McCabe's amplifier, only for him to change it back when the former left the room. 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." 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." Leckie mixed the recordings at Sawmills in early 1993; Baker thought that the title was appropriate since the songs were made and recorded in a small timeframe. The album featured a "coherence that, for all the brilliance of their later albums, they would never achieve again. Every member of the band knew what a Verve song sounded like and they were all pulling in the same direction."
Ashcroft sought influence in anything he could, with the mundanity of life, such as having meaningful conversations or getting drunk, and the less grounded topics, like looking at a dead body on a street. Egan said the lyrics were distinctly metaphoric, with Ashcroft choosing to keep a reclusive "ambiguity in his work. He disdained the video culture which now tended to do pop consumers' thinking for them: rather than force feeding people images, he wanted their imaginations to run wild." Radhika Takru of Drowned in Sound said the band did not lament a breakup; more so, they contemplated the "inevitability of its demise." As the band did not wish their debut to be a collection of hits, their first three singles were left off the track listing. Ashcroft retrospectively said it would have been a rip-off if it had their previous singles on it, preferring it to be "totally different, it's an actual event." He wanted to "make it special", an approach that Egan said "included textures created by additional instruments, including the flute, horns, accordion, and piano. Ashcroft would later assert that he was a believer in natural sounds and that Verve's attempt to be the future wasn't undermined by using classical instruments." which took their cues from the parts on Fun House (1968) by the Stooges.
An issue Ashcroft had with contemporary bands was them trying too hard to emulate one particular influence, whereas for Verve, they took in varied inspirations that they were not fanatics of one specific band; they soaked up many acts; "then in turn you don't rip [one of] them off, because you've got so much going on there in your head." Despite this, Salisbury's drum parts took influence from those heard in Gris-Gris (1968) by Dr. John. and shoegaze. Al Shipley of Spin, journalist Neil McCormick in The Nation, Steve Ciabattoni of CMJ New Music Report, Nick Southall of Stylus Magazine, and author Michael Heatley in his book Rock and Pop: La historia Completa (2007) also highlighted the psychedelic sound of the album. McCabe considered parts of the album to be a precursor to the post-rock scene and acts like Tortoise.
Songs
Tracks 1–5
The album opens with "Star Sail", which Baker said starts with a "deceptive blast of feedback and then a series of wireless cries from Richard against a slow, shimmering wave of guitar." Ashcroft was aided by Mark Corley, a friend of the band, on backing vocals.
"Slide Away" was the second-ever song the band had composed. For the last 50 seconds of the song, Leas said Ashcroft's vocal wrestles with the increasing sound of the guitar work as it envelops him, "but in the end he takes the song's advice and lets the currents carry him away." AP Childs of Gigwise said the music "comes on all mushroom-head with a groove that is Soft Machine freeform meshed with Planet Gong sax runs." Wilding said it "somehow managed to be intangible yet ludicrously close to magnificent, that hints appeared suggesting Verve had the grace to fortify Ashcroft's dramatic boasts."
"Butterfly" has a blues-esque rhythm section with slide guitar on top until it shifts into a musical bed of psychedelic music, where Ashcroft can be heard repeating the song's title. Its name stems from Ashcroft being interested in chaos theory and the concept that a butterfly fluttering its own wings in one area can have consequences in a different area. McCabe said it has its origins in him and Ashcroft playing around with a Steely Dan loop, where he was "making bonker noises, hitting my guitar, stoned out of me mind as well..." Lager proposed that it is sung from the perspective of Ashcroft's mother to his deceased father. Ashcroft was interested in Cannon's work at the time; two years later, when Verve got signed, the pair reconnected. Baker said Cannon was influenced by the "magnificently overblown, psychedelic music," featured on the album and set out to idealise a concept that could accompany it. The former was taken in a cellar in Up Holland, Lancashire, while the latter, used for the back cover, was shot in Birkdale Cemetery in Southport with a man wearing Ashcroft's clothing. The idea for a burning car came from Ashcroft, who wanted it set in an urban environment, but Spencer Jones thought it would send the wrong type of statement. "It was too much of an aggressive image — an urban setting with a car on fire. What's that saying? It was good to juxtapose that against very peaceful setting. You're getting this ultra violence if the burning car juxtaposed, literally, with this very bucolic, most like a 19th century, setting."
Release and name change
In May 1993, Billboard reported that Verve's debut studio album was planned for release the following month. Record companies PolyGram and Deutsche Grammophon filed a suit against Verve on 7 May 1993 at the US District Court in Los Angeles, California, claiming trademark infringement. while Deutsche Grammophon owned the rights to the label's name. All members of the band and Caroline Distribution, Hut and Virgin Records were listed as defendants in the suit, which alleged that their "activities were likely to cause confusion, mistake or deception as to the source of origin" of the band's releases. It sought an injunction to halt sales of any release bearing Verve's name, with damages to be determined. According to Savage, the label said that if someone were to go to a record store and exclaim, I want a new Verve record' and they'd be given a record by this British pop group when they obviously want a jazz record." Discussions for a name continued for a month, with suggestions of renaming to so that they could call their album Dropping an 'E' for America.
Verve had the idea of having market research done in the US to see if product confusion would have occurred. This would have been a costly move, in addition to the legal fees from defending against the suit. A Storm in Heaven appeared in the US as intended through Vernon Yard Recordings, a subsidiary of Virgin Records, on 15 June 1993, It was released in the UK on 21 June 1993 through Hut Records. Clarke described the album's context: "Surrounded by Suede's rejuvenated London-centric Bowie-isms, Blur's defining Modern Life Is Rubbish tirade, and the mainstream successes of grunge, the album sat uncomfortably among its contemporaries." During the final date of their late 1993 UK tour, it was reported that the band had settled out-of-court with Verve Records, which saw the band amend their name to the Verve.