The band had formed between school friends vocalist Richard Ashcroft, bassist Simon Jones, and drummer Peter Salisbury, with guitarist Nick McCabe joining shortly after.

[20] Leckie focused on getting the right atmosphere instead of working with discipline, a method that McCabe preferred, having previously disliked their prior sessions for taking too much time setting up the drums and getting a particular bass sound.

Author Sean Egan, in his book The Verve: Star Sail (1998), wrote that this one note of music symbolised the band's "off-the-cuff approach to the recording and their desire for a dirty sound.

[20] Additional songs were recorded during the sessions that were ultimately left off the finished album, including "6 O'Clock", "No Come Down", "Shoeshine Girl", "South Pacific", "Twilight", and "Where the Geese Go".

"[41] A few onlookers thought this comment of Ashcroft's was a bit impractical, as aspects of several specific acts could be heard, such as Can, the Doors, Echo & the Bunnymen, Funkadelic, Led Zeppelin, and My Bloody Valentine, among others.

[47] Ryan Leas of Stereogum said, depending on how listeners characterise shoegaze, A Storm in Heaven was likely an underrated release in the genre, also proposing that it could be an "excellent psychedelic" album.

[48] Al Shipley of Spin,[49] journalist Neil McCormick in The Nation,[50] Steve Ciabattoni of CMJ New Music Report,[51] Nick Southall of Stylus Magazine,[52] and author Michael Heatley in his book Rock and Pop: La historia Completa (2007) also highlighted the psychedelic sound of the album.

[54] The album opens with "Star Sail", which Baker said starts with a "deceptive blast of feedback and then a series of wireless cries from Richard against a slow, shimmering wave of guitar.

[56] Baker acknowledged that there were numerous acts creating this style of brooding space rock during the time, though only a few incorporated an "underlying edginess that came out of this apparent confusion and spontaneity", providing an "almost disturbed quality" for Verve that was lacking in their peers.

[55] Clarke thought the song was hazy and drenched in feedback, serving as a template for the big-sounding psychedelia on the rest of the album, "complete with squalling guitars and white noise", while Ashcroft's "troubled mind is immediately apparent" in the lyrics.

[57] Rudi Abdallah of Drowned in Sound said Jones and Salisbury, the rhythm section of the band that governs the "tides of delay with voluptuous grooves, are our life raft upon which we drift under McCabe's abrasively graceful squall.

"[55] Baker said "The Sun, the Sea" starts with an abrasive guitar part and, surprisingly, a section of horns, giving way to Ashcroft's strongest vocal performance so far, gliding on top of a Spaghetti Western-like soundscape of "ominous riffs and further blasts from the wind instruments.

"[55] Leas remarked that it clashes like a wave can, keeping in line with half of the song's title, offering a "generally aqueous vibe that dominates" the rest of the album.

"[47] MusicOMH's Ben Hogwood pointed out the obvious inspiration from Echo & the Bunnymen and said it earns its "aggression through McCabe's wall of sound to paint a vivid picture of the sea spray.

[63] Baker said it is one of the more out-there tracks on the album, as its simple rhythm structure "treads water slightly but its overlaid, bizarrely," with a flute solo in the vein of progressive rock.

[56] Baker said that in "Make It 'Til Monday", the band entered into a dream-like headspace as far as they were able to: "There's a bare shimmer of guitar in the background, some gentle riffs in front of that and then Richard's voice sounding like it's coming from a long way beyond the grave; weirdly serene and out there, tripping in opposite directions to the music.

[54] Clarke thought it was the "most specifically lyrical track on the album," and that it also featured McCabe's best guitar part, "with a threatening riff and subtle texture that reinforced his fast-developing reputation as one of Britain's most creative guitarists.

[35] Baker said the artwork shows a "ghostly figure at the mouth of a cave in front of the letters VERVE in flames and then inside [the sleeve] was a whole series of different vignettes of the band and their friends.

"[82] A Storm in Heaven was re-pressed on vinyl in 2016;[83] that same year, an expanded version of the album was issued, including B-sides, EP tracks, BBC Radio 1 session material, and a DVD of a 1992 live performance.

[91] The video shoot took place in the village of San José in Spain,[72] while a portion was filmed in a brothel in Almería, an area that made Ashcroft think of movies by David Lynch.

[109] They performed with Lollapalooza between 7 July and 5 August 1994, appearing on the second stage, which was created to showcase newer or esoteric acts alongside the Flaming Lips, Luscious Jackson, Rollerskate Skinny, and the Frogs.

"[122] In a review for Select, journalist Andrew Collins wrote that it was "self-consciously rockier and more macho than Slowdive, the guitar often an aggressor ... On occasion, it actually sounds like The House of Love on valium.

Journalist Rob Sheffield in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide called A Storm in Heaven a "top-notch debut, full of long, druggy jams, shoegazing guitar excursions, and Mad Richard's shambolic, shamanic vocals.

"[62] Record Collector writer Tim Peacock said the album was largely "dominated by otherworldly, echo-laden delights such as Star Sail and the deceptively bucolic Virtual World and its headily elusive, psychedelia-streaked beauty has remained gloriously intact" in the years that followed.

[85] Ian King of PopMatters said the album's most fascinating tracks are the ones that were able 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.

"[132] For Rolling Stone Germany, journalist Sassan Niasseri said the album was for shoegaze fans that "didn't stand on the dance floor, but saw themselves on rowing boats in stalactite caves, like the sighing role models Echo & The Bunnymen.

"[58] Journalist Mark Beaumont, in a review for Classic Rock, commented that apart from "Star Sail" and "Blue", the album had not "aged well, essentially 47 minutes of 'Mad' Richard Ashcroft formlessly wailing to be let out of guitarist Nick McCabe's psychedelic wind tunnel.

It may not have been the album that set the commercial glove alight, but it was still good enough to leave the fading baggy and shoegazing scenes trailing in its wake, collectively gasping for breath and unable to focus on through the ensuing dust.

"[40] Clarke thought that the album was an "impressive, albeit patchy debut" that continued the "formless sings swathed in cloaks of noise" of their early singles "with only a smattering of traditional tracks," highlighting "Blue" and "Slide Away".

[135] For the rest of the album, he thought it was "shapeless without being aimless, with the band's spacey backdrop proving at least a worthy sound for Richard's impressive and at times other-worldly, yet still melodic vocals.