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May 13, 2014Perhaps this isn't provocative but it's not meant to be: it's designed to be handsome, satisfying lifestyle rock, and it is.
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UncutApr 24, 2014Gone, for the most part, are the aching ballads in favour of identikit stadium rock epics somewhere between Simple Minds and Coldplay, overlain with '90s dance beats. [May 2014, p.73]
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MojoApr 24, 2014Embrace is schizophrenic stab at modernity, bolting synths and clattering drum patterns to forgettable harmonies, with limp results. [May 2014, p.88]
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Q MagazineMay 20, 2014The musical similarities to old muckers Coldplay might smack of cynicism, but you can't fault their ambition. [Jun 2014, p.108]
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Apr 28, 2014Although 'I Run' and 'At Once' are the sort of soaring tunes they always did so well, on the whole there's no compelling answer to that initial question: why?
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Apr 25, 2014The album hits more often than it misses. Longstanding fans will either love or loathe the more prominently electronic direction, but it’s clear that Embrace have succeeded in keeping up with the times while continuing to sound like the same band.
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Apr 24, 2014Immediately accessible and vaguely uplifting, music of this kind undeniably serves a purpose, even if there's already quite a successful band out there serving said purpose already.
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Apr 25, 2014There are occasional lapses (‘I Run’ is textbook Embrace, and thus completely forgettable), and probably too few ideas to really sustain a record, plus of course Editors have made pretty much this exact album at least twice in the last ten years, but still--it’s a hell of a rug-pull from a band long written-off, and a reminder to some of us that everything should be approached with an open mind.
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Apr 24, 2014Despite the curveballs and their extended break from the biz, the band’s phasers remain set to festival-primed, punch-the-air anthemic bravado, a formula as solid today as it was in their early feted period.
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Apr 24, 2014Self-produced and melding electronic elements to their more conventional methods, this is a record by a band that has fallen in love with making music again.
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Apr 28, 2014Embrace's populist sensibilities remain intact: stadium-friendly choruses rise up and grab you by the throat at every opportunity.