Embrace: The Good Will Out - 1998
By 1998, the influence of Oasis was everywhere in the BritPop genre, no more so than on this, the debut album Embrace. Music nerds describe the album not as BritPop, but as Post BritPop. Oh for fuck's sake! They're British, they play guitars loud, they sneer on their vocals, they have two brothers in the group (the McNamaras) and the year was 1998, so in my ignorant, sixties and seventies-reared, non-pedantic world, they're certainly part of the BritPop era.
At the time, would you believe this was the fastest-selling debut album by a British artist. That statistic surprised me, although, to be honest, I don't give a Liam Gallagher cuss about statistics.
Like Oasis's Be Here Now, the album seems to go on forever. I enjoy it in short bites, but a whole hour of it tests my resolution somewhat. I was brought up on thirty minute albums in the sixties and the seventies, remember. I tend to prefer Embrace popping up as part of a BritPop playlist here and there.
Anyway, let's take a listen. After a brief ambient intro we kick straight into the chunky riffage and whiny vocals of All You Good Good People. The tile is Oasis-ish and so is the sound, albeit much better produced, toning down (slightly) the bombast and giving us a modicum of subtlety. In true Be Here Now style, it lasts nearly seven minutes. It is a good enough track but it is so close to Oasis it loses a bit of credibility in my eyes. It has Oasis and Jam-like "la-la-la's" in its big ending.
The next track tops the opener, however, I have a lot of time for My Weakness Is None Of Your Business. Its string arrangements see the band turning from Oasis into The Verve. Most derivative, once more. Lead vocalist Danny McNamara said that much of this material (90% of it, apparently) was written long before either of those bands either existed or were famous, so there you go.
Come Back To What You Know is a pleasant, string-enhanced rock ballad. One Big Family is a huge, big grungy riff-fest, full of slightly grating whiny vocals and some hard-as-nails guitar. There's more "la-la-la's" here too. A bit unoriginal that, although McNamara said "everyone understands la-la-la".
Higher Sights is another ballad and it seemed, at the time, that Oasis, The Verve, Embrace and others, even Dodgy, were all trying to show how big, drawn-out, angst-ridden and emotional their ballads could be. It was all becoming a bit formulaic, wasn't it? Retread is another slow, ponderous one too, albeit one with some good guitar interjections.
The general consensus regarding this album is that it wasn't quite hook-laden enough to match Oasis or The Verve. It was ok, if not a bit second division, like Stiff Little Fingers, The Ruts or Mott The Hoople from previous eras. Could they compete long-term with the big boys? Probably not on this evidence. Time has proved that to be correct.
Anyway, it was surely time to rock out a bit. I Want The World's freaky, crash and burn guitar attack provides that. It goes without saying that it sounds like Oasis. Similar is the industrial grind of You've Got To Say Yes. I like the brief dubby bit in the middle. Fireworks is a dirge-like ballad, to be honest. t has a nice sadness abut it, however and a solid drum sound. As with many other reviewers, though, by this point I'm starting to flag. The earlier tracks that I had heard via random playlists were more than enough Embrace for my system to digest.
Of the remaining tracks, The Last Gas isn't a bad chunker. That's All Changed Forever is a moody piano and vocal ballad. Now You're Nobody is similar, but orchestrated. By now I am pretty much dropping off. The Good Will Out is another slowie to end on and hey - it's got a "la-la-la" chorus!
A good in parts album. Or should I say good at the beginning and way too long and homogenous.
