Album Review: The Verve Pipe - The Verve Pipe (1999)

The Verve Pipe - The Verve Pipe (1999)

While 1999’s The Verve Pipe (or “Froggy” for its front cover) may not be a Pinkerton (1996) (both for technicalities and overall quality), it sure feels like one. One could view it as the epitome of a sophomore slump: trashed on its delivery while being obfuscated by the murk of its own darker production, which posed such a stark departure from the unassailable shimmer of the previous album’s reception. Of course, with Weezer's Pinkerton there was a happy ending and one of the most significant critical exonerations in modern music. Unfortunately, the same spectacle does not await The Verve Pipe for the simple reason that this is not the band’s best album; however, it’s not a bad album either. On the contrary, it’s quite a good album, and no doubt the most interesting entry in the band’s excruciatingly underrated catalog. Few bands have had such a love-hate relationship with timing. Their definitive 1997 hit “The Freshmen” couldn’t have arrived at a more ideal time, during the golden age of alt rock’s commercial reign. Conversely, their last/latest album, 2001’s Underneath was released on September 11. In this case, The Verve Pipe was released into the dynamic waters of 1999, where alt rock’s demise gave way to the ascendance of pop and nu-metal. Throughout the album there is tension from both the alt rock of their origins, and the present hard rock tendencies. This tension naturally makes the album quite inconsistent, resulting in a collection of songs that displays the band hitting startling lows, but also achieving remarkable highs. “Supergig” ignites the album with a rush of fuzz previously absent in the band’s recordings; it’s the most arresting and arguably the best opening to any Verve Pipe album. Unfortunately, “She Loves Everybody” does not sustain the momentum, but the two song experience of “Hero” and “Television” renews the sense of optimism. Both songs functioned as singles: “Hero” undeniably being one of the band’s best and most unique songs, while “Television” is the closest the band has come to techno. From there the album is submerged under its own production. The Beatlesque melodies that succeeded through cleaner production on earlier albums are smothered by the post-grunge gloom and extremis fuzz of Michael Beinhorn’s production, which is a problem for these mid-album tracks. Not even the burst of “Headlines” can overcome the lull. Interestingly enough, it’s the low key quirkiness of self referential “The F Word” that resurrects the album, continuing through a set of excellent cuts to “La La,” the album’s bombastic closer. What’s clear is that on the second half of the album the band finally seems to emerge from the gloom, and once again transcend the production, essentially being themselves. The excellent rocker “Generation” rings like a descendant of the solid Villains (1996) album, while the heartbreaking and surprisingly raw “Half A Mind” points toward lead singer/songwriter Brian Vander Ark’s recent solo successes. However, it’s drummer/songwriter Donny Brown’s “She Has Faces” and its nocturne embracing production and arrangements that serves as the real epic, clear justification of his future dominance on Underneath, the band’s true masterpiece. If anything, The Verve Pipe is a transition album, one that found the band pursuing the current commercial genre while still holding on to their roots. It’s ironic then that in trying to be commercial, the band produced something quite ambitious and experimental, something not commercial at all, and with it came some excellent songs. In light of the current state of mainstream music in the 2000s, listeners willing to consume this album in its entirety might find that The Verve Pipe deserves a bit of that Pinkerton respect, or even that the music makes more sense now then it did in 1999. In the end, there exists a small spectacle around The Verve Pipe, and in all its pros and cons it’s quite fitting that it should be this band’s eponymous release; after all, it’s no Secret Semadi.

3.5/5

"Another song, it was so wrong, the radio refused to play it / I'm not afraid to serenade, the f word saved and sucked the life from me / And I got to get arrested, to keep you interested"

S. McSmoke-Smoke