Embrace - ‘Dry Kids (B-Sides 1997-2005)’ (Hut)Released 31/10/05

In London...

by Neil Condron
Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Embrace - ‘Dry Kids (B-Sides 1997-2005)’ (Hut)Released 31/10/05

Watch Embrace - Ashes

To most people out there, Embrace are the definition of indie mediocrity: better than Starsailor, but no Coldplay. A match for Richard Ashcroft’s solo stuff but a long way short of Oasis’s (admittedly inexplicably) continued mass appeal. Undoubtedly, the McNamara brothers can pen a decent tune, but for every life-affirming ‘Ashes’ there’s also a lumpen ‘Come Back To What You Know’. And then there’s singer Danny, exposed on those early records as flatter than a Pop Idol reject after being straddled by a horny Michelle McManus. And yet, thousands of devoted fans will fight their cause to their death, ensuring sell-out tours, chart-topping albums and hit-singles have become the norm for Huddersfield’s finest. So, are the rest of us missing the point? Perhaps some answers may lie in this collection of off-cuts and single-fillers…

Let’s be realistic: there’s no point pretending that this collection will whet the appetite of anyone other than completists and newer Embrace fans. But there is, in fact, a subtle magic to some of these songs that makes it a bit more obvious why each Embrace single is so treasured by their following. Put simply, some of the tracks here are masterpieces – the brittle ‘Butter Wouldn’t Melt’ is so much sweeter for not being subjected to the usual string-laden verse-chorus formula; the Richard-sung ‘The Way I Do’ shows Liam Gallagher a thing or two about how to pull off a Lennon-esque musical love-letter without sounding exactly like the erstwhile mop-top; and in ‘Waterfall’, Embrace have a song of such stirring soulfulness that in the hands of a more likely star it would probably be a career-defining hit. The melancholic ‘Madelaine’ is probably the collection’s best song, while how the Stones-y gospel of ‘Maybe I Wish’ was deemed unsuitable for fourth album ‘Out Of Nothing’ is a question only the band themselves can answer.

Many of the tracks are pretty much standard McNamara fare: good news for fans but not so for the yet-to-be-convinced. But there are indicators as to where the band’s sound could have headed if different decisions had been taken. For example, a speaker-quaking Perfecto mix of ‘One Big Family’ betrays the band’s ambitions for a Big Beat sound for debut LP ‘The Good Will Out’, and the Spiritualized-meets-The Band cosmic groove of ‘Feels Like Glue’ would certainly have lent a trippier vibe to ‘Out Of Nothing’. We also discover that it’s not all gloom and grey northern skies in Embrace’s world as they let loose in the studio with the ‘Thriller’-inspired ‘Flaming Red Hair’ and inject melodic beauty into D12’s ‘How Come’ on a session for Jo Whiley’s radio show. Making Eminem listenable? Maybe their Stan-like (instead of the bleached crop and dungarees, read outgrown centre-parts and frayed boot-cuts) devotees are right and these boys really are geniuses after all…

…alas, they’re not right, and they’re not geniuses – at least not judging from this compilation. There are too many mundane anthem-by-numbers on here (particularly from their Oasis-lite early years) to make that suggestion worthy of pub discussion past even the half-pint mark. But at 18 tracks, and with the necessity of representing the band’s growth from the Fierce Panda EPs into the smoother unit they are today, there’s bound to be a few tracks that sound no better than, well, Embrace B-sides. It’s amazing however to see how the removal of pressures that accompany recording albums and A-sides can actually purify the talent a band has. ‘Dry Kids’ is one for the fans, sure. But it’ll be a pretty dishonest indie snob who can’t find anything to touch the soul here.

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