The Brits are supposed to be all about composure and repression. Funny then, how a litany of bathetic British bands-- Travis, Coldplay, Keane, Snow Patrol-- are all teary-eyed bluster and grandiloquent piano ballads that claw at the cloud cover till it's cheesecloth. Is England so gray and soggy that she needs these maudlin, unabashedly contrived arena-packers for a morale boost? I suppose if it's cloudy out, you lack a lady, the dog's got intestinal parasites, and you're wondering how it got to be time for EastEnders and you're still in sweats, the music has a certain charm. But most of us in the States want to spend an introspective hour with Parachutes. Nine times out of 10, we go for the quick fix.
Embrace have been at it for awhile and, like Bacardi and cola, you can always count on them to get the job done. But never have they turned in an effort as pretty or economical as Out of Nothing. Like a concert hall built atop a subway line, the album quakes with a faint but omnipresent tremor of sadness, tempering Embrace's heavenward stomp with a melancholic gegenschein.
The album opens on high with a song appropriately titled "Ashes". God knows what Embrace have endured: platinum-selling albums and chart-killing singles can take a toll. "Ashes", however, captures the feel of post-personal disaster perspective-shift, tidily kneading lyrics like: "Now watch me rise up and leave all the ashes you made out of me," into a dutifully anthemic chorus. "Gravity", the album's lead UK single, is the standout ballad, a kindly, "Imagine"-style piano pulser that manages to outstrip the sum of its parts."Someday" is the winsome, face-the-day rocker, replete with a chorus that wrenches as much as it punches and a tumid gospel-tinged ebb.
Only on "Wish 'Em All Away" and "A Glorious Day" do the band approach Oasis' pomp, and that's not even as bad as it sounds. On the former-- a lighters-out strum-- a chorus gravitating around the word "wish" and some superfluous harmonica is all. "A Glorious Day", meanwhile, is an unneeded rehash of "Gravity", the better ballad. Other bad news? Don't expect any choruses the size of Travis' "Sing" or any of Coldplay's chart-topping singles; Embrace prefer understatement and consistency. But the result is less wish-wash, more dependable songwriting. For our non-X-dropping sort of sad sack, Out of Nothing provides a neat and reliable uplift, and sometimes that means the world.
