Here it is: the British rock album that bigmouths such as Noel

Gallagher

and Ian "Mac" McCulloch wish they could have made in 1997 -- an

album for

which comparisons to past classics such as The Rolling Stones'

Exile On

Main Street, Pink Floyd's Meddle and (especially) Van

Morrison's

Astral Weeks are not mere corporate hyperbole but instead

literal truth.

Who could have known that The Verve, who seemed to have

slipped off into the

void forever following their pre-crack-up/breakdown sophomore

album A

Northern Soul in 1995, would regroup for a "comeback" that,

for once, isn't a

contradiction in terms? Yet here it is, a sprawling, beautiful

collection of

impassioned songsmithery from the man formerly known as "Mad"

Richard

Ashcroft, a tag sure to be replaced from this point on by "The

Brilliant."

Not that The Verve hadn't hinted at greatness in the past: I still

treasure The

Verve E.P. from 1992, litttered as it was with neo-psychedelic

gems such as

"Gravity Grave," "She's A Superstar" and the ethereal "A Man

Called Sun" (from

which current U.K. faves Mansun took their name). And there

were plenty of

inspirational moments to be found on the two previous long-

players, A Storm

In Heaven and the aforementioned A Northern Soul as

well.

But none of that had prepared me for the truly inspired re-

emergence called

Urban Hymns, the perfect title for a collection of

timeless songs.

Here, The Verve have fashioned a paean to the life (or lack

thereof) we find

ourselves enmeshed within at the end of the 20th century, daring

to dig beneath

the superficial glitz of consumer culture to drag out the torn and

tattered soul of

Western man.

To put it bluntly, the first five tracks here can stand with the

opening five tracks of

any album I've ever heard.

The sublime "Bitter Sweet Symphony" -- based in part around a

bouncy string

sample from an obscure orchestral version of The Rolling Stones'

"The Last

Time," while also evoking the majesty of prime-era Van Morrison --

is the kind of

song that you truly wish would never end, as Ashcroft, in

magnficent voice

throughout, sets the tone for what is to follow with some aptly

ambivalent

reflections on life as we know it: "Cause it's a bitter sweet

symphony, this life/

Trying to make ends meet/ You're a slave to money, then you die,"

he sings in

an inspired tone, simultaneously expressing a hate for his

existence and a

powerful love for it. From the opening notes, the song strikes you

as among the

greatest lead-off tracks in rock history.

Of the next four, tracks two and four, "Sonnet" and "The Drugs

Don't

Work," and tracks three and five, "The Rolling People" and

"Catching The

Butterfly" form stylistic duos: the former pair are both fine non-

ironic examples of

what rock balladry circa 1997 should sound like, updating the torn

and frayed

feel of Exile On Main Street for a new generation, complete

with touches

of country pedal-steel twang and lilting strings. Both are exactly

the kind of

songs that the recent Echo & the Bunnymen comeback

Evergreen

desperately tried and ultimately failed to deliver.

With "The Drugs Don't Work" especially, Ashcroft has come up

with a late-'90s

cross between Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" and the Stones'

"Soul

Survivor," somehow making ennui and dead-end desperation

over into

something spiritually uplifting. "All this talk of getting old/ it's

getting me down

my love/ like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown/ this time I'm coming

down," he

sings in what must be the most striking set of lyrics you'll hear this

year. "Now

the drugs don't work, they just make you worse/ but I know I'll see

your face

again."

Meanwhile, "The Rolling People" and "Catching The Butterfly"

make a grand

return to the musical terrain of The Verve E.P. and A

Storm In

Heaven: both are jazzy, roiling and exploratory sonic

excursions

reminiscent of Ummagumma Pink Floyd, as Ashcroft and

guitarist Nick

McCabe set the controls for the heart of sun and prove that you

indeed

can have your cake and eat it too. "Here we are the rolling

people / can't

stay for long, we gotta go," Ashcroft sings, creating an anthem for a

new Beat

Generation in the process.

New vistas are conjured, as The Verve renew the possibilities of

rock music

before your ears, refusing to concede that such things as

limitations or

boundaries exist.

And that's only the first five -- if there's any problem with Urban

Hymns, it's that the sheer volume of great material here makes

this an

album that needs to be digested over time, in sections, as it were.

Those who

finally get past the stunning first five won't be let down, however:

McCabe's

eerie, ambient "Neon Wilderness," for instance, sounds like some

unholy

amalgam of The Stooges' "We Will Fall" and The Spacemen 3,

while "Space

and Time," a track which supposedly obsesses Liam Gallagher, is

more fine

balladry which postulates existential alienation as the main fact of

our lives: "We

have existence and it's all we share," Ashcroft laments as he

nevertheless

yearns for something higher and greater.

What's really impressive is that, as the tracks roll by, from

"Weeping Willow" to

"Lucky Man" straight through to the psychedelic sonic maelstrom

of the closing

call to arms, "Come On" (featuring the classic couplet "I must be

feeling low/ I

talked to God in a phone box on my way home"), they all bear up

to close

inspection, with no loss of quality control.

Ironically, while everyone was sitting around this year waiting for

the usual

suspects (Oasis or U2) to raise rock 'n' roll to new heights, it is The

Verve -- the

band who had been given (and had given themselves) up for

dead -- who have

re-emerged to unleash one of the classics not only of the year or

even the

decade, but of all time.

Long may they roll.