Slide Away

Verve: "Slide Away" (Hut)

With their feet in the air and their heads on the ground and their hearts on their sleeves, that's where Verve are at. Spacious guitars flail, Richard Ashcroft pines, melodies glow dimly and the whole thing is condensed into four minutes of lyrical appeals like "I wonder which cup you drink from, I hope it's mine," appeals which are obviously achingly heartfelt because they're so echoey and buried that you can barely make them out.

Erotically charged abject loneliness rules O.K.

You Know Who: "Andy"

Did you know it's five years to the week since 'The Race' went Top Ten? And it only seems like yesterday. I mention it only to start you wondering what Dieter Meier's getting up to now so that I can tell you and feel like my life is worthwhile. He has a walk-on part in this. I don't know enough about Andy Warhol to know if he was a fan of tribute records, but if he was, he'd go for 'Songs For Drella' ahead of this affectionate but functional biog: "Sometimes late in the Seventies/he was running around with a Polaroid/taking pictures of celebrities/for a magazine called Interview." Yeah, we know. Next!