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Venue

Swords Castle

Bridge Street, Swords, K67 X439, Dublin, Ireland

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Embrace biography

Embrace is an English rock group often associated with 90s Brit-pop music. They are influenced by shoegaze pop acts like the The Verve and Stone Roses and also draw a great deal of inspiration from 80s indie legends like the Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen.

The group’s initial stages started to take form at the dawn of the 90s in Bailiff Bridge, Brighouse, England. The early formation of Embrace consisted of brothers Danny and Richard McNamara (lead vocalist and guitarist respectively) as well as a tentative bassist. The trio started to write and record material, usually with the assistance of a drum machine.

However this would soon change with the addition of drummer Mike Heaton. By this point the group were regularly composing and laying down tracks, acquiring enough material to land several gigs around town. During this time the group did not have a stable name so they ended up going through an assortment of titles such as Christianne F, Shimmer, Merchandise, Curious Orange etc...

The group eventually settled on Embrace. They recognized that there was already an American hardcore punk band with this name so before assuming the title they contacted frontman Ian MacKaye for permission. MacKaye warned the group that it might cause confusion, but overall was accepting of the proposition.

Embrace gradually stepped up the quality of their recordings transitioning from a cassette recorder to a 16 track recoding studio. Though their sound became more refined their early material was still lo-fi and was released exclusively on cassette tapes.

The group started to pick up popularity around Leeds, with one of their tapes managing to make it into a local fanzine. The group even caught the eye of the renowned publication Melody Maker; however, they did not receive positive reviews. This particular write up caused the band to re-evaluate their sound and in a sense instigated them to build a more rich and complex style.

In 1995 Embrace welcomed it’s newest member, bassist Steve Firth and in 1997 they issued their single “All You Good Good People” through Fierce Panda Records. 1997 also saw the release of the two EPs “Fireworks” and “One Big Family”. A Year later they issued their debut album “The Good Will Out”, which leapt to No.1 on the UK Albums chart. Their two follow up albums 2000’s “Drawn from Memory” and 2001s “If You’ve Never Been” also faired well on the charts both making it into the top 10. The group also embarked on several critically acclaimed tours. The tour for their debut album found them playing alongside Coldplay.

In 2002 Embrace was dropped by Hut Records and signed to Independiente Records. Their 4th studio album “Out of Nothing” was released in 2004 and reached No. 1 on the UK Charts. It featured four singles, including the hit “Gravity”, which was co-written by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. The compilation album “Dry Kids: B-Sides 1997-2005” followed and in 2006 Embrace released their 5th studio album “This New Day”, which proved to be their 3rd album to top the UK charts.

The band went on a three year hiatus starting in 2007; however in 2011 they announced that they were working on a new studio album. They signed with the label Cooking Vinyl in 2013, but did not release their 6th feature length album until 25 April 2014.

Live reviews

I’m not totally convinced that there’s really such a thing as post-Britpop, but if there was, Embrace would be a good example of what that sound would involve; they were one of the first bands to pick up the baton left after that movement fizzled out int he late nineties, and interpolate those influences with a darker indie rock sound. Since the release of their debut, The Good Will Out, in 1998, they’ve earned themselves a sizeable cult following in the UK, had two platinum records, and had big-hitting singles make a name for them, like ‘All You Good Good People’, ‘Come Back to What You Know’, and England World Cup song ‘World at Your Feet’ back in 2006. After taking a hiatus throughout the mid-noughties, they returned with a new self-titled album, earlier this year; it went in at number five on the charts, and they played a sold-out tour in support of it across the UK in May, with career-spanning setlists met with raucous singalongs from the crowds; despite some reservations about the quality of Danny McNamara’s vocals, the shows were largely well-received, and the band are now already turning their attentions to a seventh studio album.

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