Track Listing

1. Intro
2. All You Good Good People
3. My Weakness Is None Of Your Business
4. Come Back To What You Know
5. One Big Family
6. Higher Sights
7. Retread
8. I Want The World
9. You've Got To Say Yes
10. Fireworks
11. The Last Gas
12. That's All Changed Forever
13. Now You're Nobody
14. The Good Will Out

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22530 in Music
• Released on: 1998-06-08
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Of course, it all comes down to whether you can stand Danny McNamara's voice. Touted as the New Oasis (two Northern brothers in love with rock's classic years, one plays guitar and one sings), Embrace could certainly write a fine tune--"Come Back To What You Know" is the Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work" but about something more comforting and familiar: "The Hugs Don't Work", perhaps. But the songs were always left vulnerable when Danny opened his mouth. Still, it ain't over 'til the flat laddie sings, and when you've got songs as air-punchingly redeeming as "All You Good, Good People"--imagine the Waterboys singing "I Am The Resurrection"--who cares if your singer sounds like Ian Brown on the rack? After all, Shaun Ryder is just Grandpa Simpson with a bag of drugs and a rhyming dictionary, and we all love the Happy Mondays. The good will out. --Caitlin Moran

Customer Reviews

Truly an essential 90s album
This album is in my view one of the best purchases I made in the 90s. It's the debut offering from Embrace, another northern band with (at the time) swagger and some anthemic music to back them up.

The singles here are spectacular in their quality - notably Come Back To What You Know and All You Good Good People, both of which were regular fixtures on the radio around their release, both of which hit the top 10, and both of which will make you go 'ahhh' if you don't think you know them now. The strength of the album, though, lies in the album tracks.

Embrace are kings of the uplifting crowd anthem (see the singles) but they are even better at bringing an optimistic twist out of some of the saddest and most heart-rending songs you can hear. The build of the piano-focussed title track is beautiful, and That's All Changed Forever was for a long time my favourite song of all time.

I can't recommend this album enough. It doesn't have the musical sophistication that some would like, but it makes up for all of it in bottle, and great, great songs.

A guilty pleasure.
I shouldn't like this band. People who know me would probably refer to me as a music snob - which isn't true - and here's the proof. I love this record and I love Embrace! A mate of mine at uni did me a copy of this album when it came out and I promptly chucked it in the bin without listening to it. That week I was moving out of halls and into a flat and for some reason I fished it out of the bin just as I was leaving. I'm glad I did because I couldn't stop playing it after that. For the next few months it was pretty much all I played. Maybe it was the sense of dislocation I felt after leaving uni and having to fend for myself (find a job, pay rent, be a grown up etc...) but the songs seemed to make sense. It sounds silly, but they really helped me! The intro may be nicked off Sgt. Pepper's but All You Good Good People is as good an anthem as you'll ever hear. Embrace got a lot of stick for trying to be like Oasis but that was just lazy journalism. Oasis could never write songs as good as these - more anthemic, louder, brasher - but what's truly amazing about this album is the deftness of touch. Fireworks, That's All Changed Forever and Retread are heartbreakingly good. Danny's voice is straining all over the place but that only adds to the fragility of the sentiments. The lyrics are great too. They don't read particularly well - in fact, they don't seem to make much sense on paper at all. Check out My Weakness Is None Of Your Business:

Don't wanna make a row
You do And it's your loss I'm around
I don't mind doing everything
Hallelujah you're the one come back now

When they're sung they sound like poetry to rival Keats! This album still sounds great today. Embrace lost their way a little bit - chewed up and spat out by their major label backers. To accompany this, get the b-sides compilation - Dry Kids. When they were making this album they had more great songs than they knew what to do with - most of them ended up as b-sides. I remember them playing Dry Kids live and it blew me away. They came on stage to big blinking lights that spelt out EMBRACE, punching the air like they'd won the cup. I repeat, I shouldn't like this band...

Why didn't I find this 10 years ago?
I have had this album in my car for many months now and still listen to it. Danny may well be unable to sing like Luther Vandross, but all that means is that you can join in to a comparable standard when you want to belt out the perfectly arranged songs on a long trip home. It is a varied album and every song on it has merit and could stand alone. Buy this as you are suffering loss in your life without it.