There’s a fantastic split-screen montage in the movie (500) Days of Summer where Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s expectations and reality are simultaneously shown side by side as he attends a party expecting to rekindle his recently fizzled relationship with Zooey Deschanel. Alas, his expectations were quite off the mark as, in reality, he arrived at the party to ultimately find Zooey’s friends gawking at her new engagement ring. Expectation is a funny thing in that it so often results in an overinflated reaction to any contrary reality – be it positive or negative.

So, imagine my expectation, as an avowed fan of The Verve, of the first full-length by former guitar mastermind Nick McCabe’s new venture, Black Submarine. Freed from the control freak shackles of front man Richard Ashcroft, and having nobly salvaged the band’s swan song, Forth, from completely slinking down Sad (er…Mad) Richard’s rabbit hole of increasing dourness, the skies – nay, those cosmic heavens from the early days – are the limit. Couple this with the impressive improvisational Kurofune EP released in 2011 under the band’s previous moniker, The Black Ships, and Yours Truly’s expectations had, perhaps unfairly, bubbled quite high.

Admittedly, upon the first run through New Shores, all these swollen expectations were unceremoniously dashed. No horn-spiked Storm In Heaven psychedelic flights of fancy; no “A Northern Soul” gut-punching riffage; “a couple of Forth-like meanderings and McCabe sadly showing complacency,” I bemoaned to myself. Ah, but unlike poor Mr. Gordon-Levitt’s tragic character, I fortunately have the luxury of relistening to mollify my initial expectations and reevaluate more fairly, and it turns out that the truth about New Shores is, where it so often is, somewhere in the middle of these extremes.

Aside from Forth­-like clunkers “The Love In Me” and “Is This All We Feel,” regrettably, it’s the complete departures from The Verve sound that fail to pan out consistently. Lead track, “Black Submarine,” is plagued by chintzy industrial overtones – particularly violinist Davide Rossi’s whisper-growl vocals – and excessive run time, though co-vocalist Amelia Tucker’s appearance midway through provides a breath of fresh air. The track is one of a schizophrenic trio of the album’s less successful ventures – “Move Me A Mountain” is an inconsequential and out of place acoustic ditty, while “Here So Rain”s muscular shoegaze is jarringly set askew by Tucker’s all too bright and clear vocal.

Interestingly, Tucker’s vocals are the lynchpin to the album’s successes; in those places, burying those vocals deeper in the mix creates a more consistent sonic palette. Where I previously considered McCabe to be complacent, his restraint is to be applauded as these tracks warmly open up over time. Tucker wades through McCabe’s and Rossi’s thick soundscapes on “Heart First,” thrillingly bursting forth on the chorus alongside Rossi’s strings, mirroring the song’s insistence to “take a breath and leave yourself behind you.” Ditto for “Heavy Day,” where Tucker’s vocals are expertly layered on top of themselves, in and among Rossi and McCabe. “Lover” proves the highlight as McCabe’s daughter Elly offers a perfectly ethereal foil to Rossi, while his string swells on the bridge midway through are utterly and achingly beautiful.

Black Submarine is not the second coming of The Verve, and having sat with New Shores long enough to get past that initial desire and expectation, I can say I am happy to report this is so; in fact, the band would be wise to steer clear of that path and ideally hitch their wagon to what stuck here. New Shores is ultimately an uneven album – one stuffed with a bounty of ideas, a dash of mediocrity, a pinch of identity crisis, fistfuls of triumph, and boatloads of promise.