Buoyed by the recent (or recent enough) success of comeback single ‘Gravity’ and the brotherly support of fellow droning miserablist, Chris Martin, brothers Danny and Richard McNamara rifle through the archive of B-Sides, rarities and things we’d largely forgotten – a broad choice given the fact that most indie-lovers had up till recently largely forgotten most things the band had done, and furthermore, didn’t really care either way. So in a way it’s a bit like your best mate helping you to remember just how much of an arse you made of yourself when you got drunk the previous night. Some things are best left forgotten. The upside? Embrace always were a band that had to release and re-release a record before they ever saw it charting. This was true of ‘All You Good People’ in October 1997 and its true of the boys now. Consistent if nothing else.
There’s no denying though that for a time, these lumbering Northern troubadours were indeed the band most likely. They were voted Best New Band in 1997 by NME poll readers, received a Brit Award nomination for ‘Come Back To What You Know’ and their full-length debut release, ‘The Good Will Out’ entered the charts at a pretty persuasive #1. So what’s the problem? The problem is they were a one-trick pony; a problem compounded by the fact they were out-tricked by those other mono-trick ponies, Starsailor who were in turn violently out-tricked by those ponies with tricks-only-registering-in-negative-terms, Coldplay. A case of the bland leading the bland? Well that would be too easy a strike, wouldn’t it?
18 tracks. Eighteen damn good reasons to forget.