The Verve Pipe: Underneath : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Successful public speaking requires the speaker to tell you what's about to be said, to say it, and then to remind you what was just said. This remedial approach, when deployed appropriately, puts a brand new vacuum cleaner in every home. Done improperly? Drink early and often. It's the same with songwriting. Successful pop songwriters make three and a half minutes feel like the blink of an eye. Less skillful writers make everything feel like the process itself. Underneath is the Verve Pipe's third album and it's more of exactly what made them a hit with "The Freshman" -- earnest alternative-lite vocals that cross Matchbox Twenty with Phil Collins delivered in sugary choruses that loop endlessly in case you weren't paying attention the first ten times. When they do turn in a poignant melody for "I Want All of You," the band hitches it to the kind of sales pitch ("When I see you smile/It can make the darkest day worthwhile") that Madison Avenue threw away years ago.

ROB O'CONNOR
(September 10, 2001)