on [A Storm in Heaven] are The Verve’s true form, the intuitive sound with which they should be identified." Nick Southall's 2003 retrospective for Stylus Magazine described the album's genesis as a result of the band going "into the studio with half a dozen riffs, half a dozen half-baked lyrics and a thousand ideas of ways to reach the sky. Leckie managed to seize the controls and apply the necessary degree of restraint and maturity, guiding the band back down to earth when they threatened to fly too close to the sun". In September 2016, Ian King, writing for PopMatters, awarded the album nine out of ten and remarked, "The greatest depth on A Storm in Heaven comes from the vaporous dreams that poured out of McCabe's guitar, traced patiently by Simon Jones' bass playing and Peter Salisbury's drumming. Though the Verve were able to compress their sound into radio-shaped singles "Slide Away" and "Blue", the most compelling compositions -- "Already There", "Beautiful Mind", "Virtual World"—are those that are allowed to naturally ebb and flow in a zone somewhere between pop editing and the looser jamming of the material that turned up on their singles and EPs". Reflecting on the album's legacy, McCabe said "I think something of us as a band got lost after [A Storm in Heaven] ... For the next ten years after that, that sensation was missing from the music for me. That was the last time we made that kind of landscape for the imagination to run about in." John Leckie admitted having mixed feelings about the record; "We were searching for things and waiting for things, and waiting for it to rain down on us... We came close but neither they nor I thought they managed it. It lacked the overwhelming effect of the Verve experience, maybe as there was no audience to feed off." The album would mark the band's last official release under the Verve moniker before changing their name to "The Verve" for legal reasons, so as not to clash with the record label Verve Records. In 2013, NME ranked it at number 473 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Track listing Personnel The Verve Richard Ashcroft – vocals, acoustic guitar on "See You in the Next One (Have a Good Time)", percussion on "Already There", "Beautiful Mind", "The Sun, The Sea", "Virtual World" and "Blue"