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Win Embrace Prizes You can win signed, framed album artwork as well as t-shirts on Raft Competitions. Watch Embrace Live at HMV Oxford Street Real Windows
Wonder
at Batsford Manor
The
Latest Biography
"IF
YOU'VE NEVER BEEN IN LOVE WITH ANYTHING," they sing on the title track.
And if you haven't, then, perhaps the new Embrace album isn't for you.
If, on the other hand, you believe that music is about passion rather
than slick artifice, emotion is more important than studio trickery,
and feeling counts for more than clinical precision, then a warm welcome,
indeed.
The third album from Embrace is their most honest and heart-felt collection
of songs to date. Produced by Ken Nelson (who helmed Mercury Music Prize-winning
albums by Gomez and Badly Drawn Boy as well as Coldplay's Parachutes),
If You've Never Been doesn't represent a change of direction or a brave
new dawn for the band, although it is a record giddy with surprise and
rich in invention. It is simply the most coherent, confident and classiest
expression yet of what Embrace do best.
Guitarist Richard McNamara agrees. "You can hone a record in the studio forever. But if you write a song, record it and it sounds great, what other criteria do you need? There's no point in messing about. We had so many songs we just wanted to get them out." The result is an album that took just three months to make - in marked contrast to the solid year the band spent on each of the first two albums. "Perhaps in the past we've taken too long," Danny says. "This time we decided to concentrate on the feeling and not worry about perfection. So its probably less polished. But it's definitely got more of a vibe. I feel that at last the songs sound as good on record as they do in my head." Whereas much of the last album, Drawn From Memory, was recorded in the spacious opulence of a gothic Victorian manor house, If You've Never Been was recorded in a cramped and tiny demo studio in Leeds. "It's a dark airless cellar and the local pub band would probably turn their noses up at it, " Danny explains. "But we're comfortable there. There are no distractions and when you feel you've got a good take you know its down to the music, not to having freely sampled the cocktail cabinet or the fact that you're staying in a big swanky house." It was an environment in which the band felt encouraged to trust their instincts, an approach that Danny, in particular, applied to his vocals. The result is some of his most powerfully emotive singing yet committed to record. "When you get technically better at the craft of singing you can actually lose something," he says. "If I try to sing in perfect key it can sound mannered and awful. So I've gone for the pure emotion. The aim was to be true to myself. Its a case of doing what feels right and if I don't FEEL a lyric then I can't sing it." Theoretically, six of the songs on the album were written by Danny and four by Richard. But in reality it's a more complicated process, Richard explains. "It doesn't really matter which of us writes the songs because we all add something that makes it better. It's generous of Danny to attribute this song or that song to me. But I'd never say they were mine. I don't think it's fair. They're collective compositions." Nevertheless, it is clear that the two brothers have quite different styles. Danny's panoramic songs tend to be characterised by big sweeping verses and surging choruses, heard to best effect on songs such as the sublime Over, the achingly beautiful Make It Last or Wonder, the album's first single. Richard's songs tend to have more angular rhythms and a rockier edge. As on the powerful It's Gonna Take Time. Or the infectious If You've Never Been In Love With Anything, with its Beach Boys/Turtles-style harmonies. "That song is a case in point ," Richard says. "I wrote the melody on a wurlitzer. But the harmonies were down to Danny. Then at his insistence I put more guitar on it. " Danny confirms the collaborative process. "Or take I Hope You're Happy Now, which worked the other way. I kind of liked the song but I felt it wasn't quite right. Then Richard came in and simplified it, let it breathe and made it really soulful." The McNamara brothers formed Embrace in Brighouse, Yorkshire in 1990, rehearsing in a shed at the bottom of their parents' garden, soundproofed with egg boxes. Drummer Mike Heaton joined in 1991 and has remained ever since. Bass player Steve Frith was recruited in 1995, after responding to an advert in the local free paper. He was looking for a second-hand wardrobe at the time. Mickey Dale on keyboards completed the line-up in 1996, joining shortly after the release of the first album. The band's early days were an unrewarding slog. "We spent years playing toilets before getting a record deal. We couldn't even get gigs in local pubs because we didn't conform to the Britpop image of the time." Yet they knew they were in it for life. "You don't stay in a band for eight years when nobody's listening because you want to be a star. You do it cause you love the music," Richard says simply. After a limited edition first single, All You Good Good People, released on the independent Fierce Panda label in late 1996, they signed to Hut and preceded their debut album with a series of EPs, which achieved progressively higher chart placings, culminating with Come Back To What You Know which peaked at number six in May 1998. Two weeks later, the group's debut album The Good Will Out scored a nine out of ten review in NME and entered the charts at number one. From up north and led by two brothers, inevitably Embrace found themselves hyped as "the new Oasis." And with Danny never short of a provocative quote or three, they also got themselves a reputation in the press as loud-mouthed northern braggarts. "Some of the things I said then look very arrogant when you read them in print," Danny confesses today. "But we were enthusiastic and full of self-belief. You have to be." As for the album itself, he admits that it was open to the accusation of being over-ambitious. "But there's nothing wrong with that. In fact there's something wrong if your first album DOESN'T sound like that." More to the point, it went on to sell more than 500,000 copies. The band's second album , Drawn From Memory, followed in 1999, and was produced by Tristan Nowell, who had worked on Talvin Singh's Mercury Prize winning OK. Much of it was recorded at Batsford Manor, Gloucestershire where the band took up residence for several months, holding parties on the weekend and recording during the week by candlelight. The record followed its predecessor into the upper echelons of the charts. "I think we had a strong vision on the first album," Danny says. "Then the second record was about the band playing together and was more experimental. I think the third album combines the emotional depth of the first and the organic scope of the second." Richard agrees. "And I think we've got less precious with this album.. At the start we wouldn't let go of the reins. I think we were a bit paranoiac. Then we sat back and took a more relaxed attitude and let Ken Nelson do what we had brought him in to do. I think that also allowed us to be more objective about the songs. We came up with so many ideas that the album just came tumbling out." Big-hearted and bold, romantic and reverberating with passion, If You've Never Been finds Embrace doing what they do best. And doing it better than they've ever done it before.
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