Perhaps the title
Natural Rebel echoes the title
A Northern Soul, the 1995 album that established
the Verve not just as a weird, ambitious rock band but one with commercial ambition, but that's where the comparisons end. If
the Verve spent their career striving to achieve undetermined heights,
Richard Ashcroft is content with comfort within his solo recordings, reviving sounds he never acknowledged during the period where he was known as "Mad Richard." Certainly, the
Ashcroft of
Natural Rebel is anything but mad. He's sober, serene, and sophisticated, never bothering with a swift tempo when a dirge will do. Thanks to the supple production, which is as at ease with the dripping strings of "That's How Strong" as it is with the lite disco of "Born to Be Strangers," this all goes down exceedingly easy, but it's music that has no greater aspiration than being the agreeable soundtrack to everyday tasks. This modesty may prove the title to be a lie -- there's nothing rebellious about the music and not much natural, either -- but its immaculate anodyne tones are soothing, and that's superficially pleasing, even if it doesn't remotely seem attached to the
Richard Ashcroft of lore. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine