Review: Embrace Return With ‘Love Is A Basic Need’
20 years into their recording career, Embrace are making an emphatic return with their seventh studio album. John Tarnsley remembers the early days and reviews their latest release.
I remember Embrace’s first album vividly. It was everything I loved about music back then as the sun set on the heady days of Britpop. The Good Will Out was an album of one part festival friendly anthem, arms in the air, lung busting chorus and yet secondly slow building, piano driven, melancholic, both however underpinned by Danny McNamara’s forceful and yet incredibly emotive voice.
Whilst many bands struggle to follow up that first album with that tricky second and on failing to hurdle that obstacle drift into obscurity, perhaps Embrace are not given the credit they are due to still be hanging on in there 20 years later and now on their seventh studio album.
The new album ‘Love is a Basic Need’ is Embrace back to being Embrace according to drummer Mike Heaton and it’s difficult to argue otherwise. Many elements will take you back to that opening salvo and yet without the same impact or indeed appeal.
‘Love is a Basic Need’ starts with ‘The Finish Line’ which is as contradictory as this album gets. It’s a strong opener however and from the off McNamara’s vocal appears stronger than ever.
Commercially, ‘Never’ will perhaps be the standout track. It fits that Embrace blueprint in terms of both structure, style and sound but with the vocals of Kerri Watt harmonising and complementing Danny’s in this somewhat alternative, dark and masochistic tale of romance. It is Embrace doing something different, whilst getting back to being Embrace.
‘Wake Up Call’ is at times powerful, maybe even soaring, whilst perhaps missing the mark in an attempt to be outright an anthemic. ‘Snake Oil’ continues the theme with its classic, delicious, piano keys all building towards a glorious crescendo that never quite comes. ‘Where you Sleeping’ sees Richie take over the lead vocals and he delivers what is a stand out track for me, unleashing his inner Bono with a tone and song that wouldn’t look out of place on any U2 album (certainly not their latest efforts).
As for the rest it’s all a little generic – Embrace back to being Embrace again, I guess – and if you are an Embrace fan you will probably take that. But with the exception of a couple of tracks, they are not going to attract a new fan base here; these are well trodden boards and indeed well trodden chords. Perhaps they don’t need to after 20 years, but it would only embellish such a legacy to see the inventive nuances associated with a couple of these new songs imbued throughout the album.
Those choral elements come through with the final track ‘Love is a Basic Need’ and for a moment I am back in 1998, in that field, arms in the air, lungs busting – only this time it has a little more finesse – I hope I’ve aged that well. There is nothing not to love here, it’s just on the whole nothing that new, but perhaps that’s what they were hoping for, that Embrace formula. It’s safe, it’s indelibly them, it’s their identity.
Back in 2006 Embrace were given the dubious privilege of providing England with their World Cup song entitled ‘World at Their Feet’ and much like our national side, I think it’s safe to say whilst they will never have the world at their feet, I’ll always remain a fan.
Embrace have announced a full UK tour for March and April, along with several summer festival performances. They will play Glasgow O2 Academy on Wednesday 28 March and Northumbria University in Newcastle on Thursday 29 March.
Watch an exclusive short film featuring performance videos and interviews with the band here
Love Is A Basic Need is available now
Words by John Tarnsley
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