Remember Crazytown? Bunch of pretty-boy stoners from Southern California? No? Well, anyway, they had a hit a few years back with a song called “Butterfly” which absolutely jacked (“sampled” is too nice a word) the guitar line from “Pretty Little Ditty” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I remember hearing that song and thinking, “Wow, Anthony Kiedis must be pretty pissed off about this.” But then it turned out that he was really good friends with the band, and it was his idea to use the riff and everything, and that made me feel a little better. Years later, I have nothing against Crazytown.
What does any of this have to do with Embrace? Well, Embrace sounds like Coldplay. They sound a lot like Coldplay. I figured that, somewhere in the UK, Chris Martin must be calling his attorney. Then I found out that Martin actually wrote “Gravity,” the first single off Out of Nothing. Then I found this Martin quote: "We've always loved Embrace and Danny is one of my best friends. When we wrote ‘Gravity’ we thought it sounded far too much like them for us, but not too much like them for them, so I asked Danny if he wanted the song and that was that." So maybe too much is made of bands sounding strangely similar to other bands.
Fact is, on Out of Nothing, Embrace does a few Coldplay things better than Coldplay themselves. For one, they have succeeded in making an album that sounds like a cohesive whole. For all their critical acclaim, Coldplay has never made a record as consistently listenable as this one. It goes places. It moves. From the lovelorn everyman singalongs “Ashes” and “Someday” at the front of the disc to the distant squealing guitars of “Near Life” and the climactic title track at the end, this sounds like it was written by a band interested in song cycles, not just singles.
Therein, of course, lies the problem. I like singles. A lot of other people do, too. And Embrace is a band given to big, soaring choruses, so you’d think it wouldn’t be too hard for them to write something that the kids could call TRL and request. Well, as much as I love “Spell It Out,” and I do love it, very much, there isn’t a radio-ready song on here. “Gravity,” the Martin-penned tune mentioned above, lacks that over-the-top, girls-get-chills moment that he’s so good at creating, and most everything else sounds great in the sequence of the album but not so hot on its own. The only flaw to big, soaring choruses is that it’s easy to fall into the trap of repeating them too often, and both “Looking as You Are” and “Wish ‘Em All Away” fall into this trap, dragging at the end. If Embrace wrote three minute tunes instead of the five minute ones they are currently enamored with, they would be millionaires. The overall product might not be as good, but that’s neither here nor there.
In the end, though, there’s one thing Embrace has that Coldplay will never have again: hipster cred. Check out all the pretentious music websites (and, of course, this completely unpretentious music website) – smart people like this record. So, while Coldplay is getting butchered in Chuck Klosterman essays and labeled as formulaic “dad-rock” everywhere else, you now have a cool new indie alternative for your earnest, brokenhearted Britpop fix. Embrace: The Coldplay It’s Still Cool To Like. |