| Product: |
If You've Never Been - Embrace |
| Date: |
17.09.01 (44 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Brilliant, Lyrically great, Sonically superb
Disadvantages: A little short
If you’ve never been
Embrace release their 3rd album following on from their brilliant debut album ‘The good will out’ and their much under rated follow up album ‘Drawn from memory’. All complaints that were made about both albums seem to have been addressed, many people however dislike the lead singers voice, I on the other hand think it’s brilliant and conveys emotion really well.
OVER
This is a song about a relationship ending. It’s also somewhat of a statement of intent, Embrace were criticised by some people for having songs that lasted too long. Well this one lasts 7 minutes, and to its credit it doesn’t get repetitive, in fact the song is over in a wave of brilliance. This song bears most of the Embrace hooks, such as an orchestral sound, interspersed with guitars and some heartfelt singing and lyrics.
Best lyric:
“You drag yourself over the coals
I know you’re sorry to go,
But when all you can do is say so,
I know it’s over”
Rating: 10/10
I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY NOW
This song is definitely one of my favourite ones on the entire album with perceptive lyrics, and a good sing-a-long-able chorus. This is about not being able to do anything right in someone’s eyes and this in turn has ruined his relationship. The music is as is par for the course with Embrace songs, excellent.
The best lyric for this song, is too hard too choose! I have to choose one though:
Best lyric:
“When you’re lost in the dark, undermined
And every situation makes it’s mark, know I won’t hide
No pedestals too high for me to climb,
One day I’ll reach the top with you,
And they’ll shoot me down for looking at the view”
Rating: 10/10
WONDER
This is the first single to be released from the album, a
song that starts of slow before building to the chorus, where it threatens to speed up but then relaxes again. This is a pretty mellow song but is all the better for it. The lyrics are certainly worthy of pondering over. The song is all about letting Wonder into your life, perhaps a metaphor meaning that you shouldn’t fight the good things. I.E in a relationship maybe you should just concentrate on the good things rather than dwelling on the bad things. Also in their case they could also be saying that it’s best to try to ignore criticism. By concentrating on the good you will be letting Wonder in.*
A good way of describing “Wonder” which I read was it is like a hymn of sorts, I certainly wouldn’t disagree with that.
*Of course my interpretation could well be, and indeed probably is wrong. Though part of what makes music so brilliant is how you interpret it yourself. Reviews are just there for guidance and for telling others how you personally react to it.
Best lyric:
“Don’t let them make you feel small,
With their hands like guns at your head,
They’ll claw you but they’ll never win,
If you let Wonder in”
Rating: 9/10
Many will learn
This song is another quite slow one, as most of the songs on the album are. This it has to be said isn’t the most immediate of songs on the album, though repeated listening to it shall reap its own rewards. Contemplative and melodic, this song is quite rare for Embrace in that it doesn’t seem to be at all uplifting, and remains downbeat all the way through the song.
Best lyric:
“By twist of fate, an hour too late
I come to my senses again
But you’re not here just cold and near
You left me as living made sense”
Rating: 7/10
It’s gonna take time
This song starts off in quite a vibrant manner. T
he actual song though is quite slow, with steady drumbeats and guitar strumming pushing it forward. The lyrics are well written and the singing is good.
This is about how things will take time, to improve in a relationship. Not one of the best songs on the album but certainly worthy of merit.
Best lyric:
“How can things improve, if I’m hard on myself and on everyone else”?
Rating: 7/10
Hey, what you trying to say
A nice tune drives this song along nicely; it straddles the line between being buoyant and being low key. The lyrics do the music justice, this song has one of my favourite lyrics from the album within it, incredibly beautiful, need I say more.
Best lyric:
“And stars remind you, you see the best in the dark
And every time I see you eyes,
You can’t deny it cause they say,
What you’re trying to say”
Rating: 8/10
If you’ve never been in love with anything
This is a song that bounces along well. The lyrics are good; the singing is excellent as is the backing singing that is provided by a couple of other members that are in the band. I read somewhere that this music was compared to the music from that old TV show ‘Jim’ll fix it’. I can’t deny that comparison, as it does sound familiar, from what I can remember of that shows theme tune anyway.
Best lyric:
“If you’ve never been in love with anything,
Why do you stop it now it’s happening?”
Rating 8/10
Make it last
A song that deserves to be held up as a shining example of how a tune should be made and how lyrics should be constructed and sung. This song never feels forced at all, the lyrics and the tune just flow so naturally.
I can’t recommend this song enough.
Best lyric:
“I’m over the moon in ways you
won’t believe
You say it’s too soon for you to know what all this means”
Rating: 10/10
Happiness will you get you in the end
This is one of the slowest songs on the album, almost a spoken monologue at one point. The music is once again just right though. The lyrics for this song are not the best on the album, but are more than perfunctory.
Best lyric:
“Those tear stained letters you returned unread saying
That happiness has come to you again, oh yeah
And all good things must reach their rocky end, Darling
But Happiness will get you in the end”
Rating: 7/10
Satellites
As we come to the last song and the slowest song on the album, the music is the first thing that strikes you in this song. It sounds like one of those relaxation tapes you can get! The piano comes in soon enough though. The lyrics for this song are beautiful. The music changes towards the end though, with a bit more drum and chord sequences than the rest of the song.
Best lyric:
“And a million cold thoughts,
Won’t stop you feeling warm,
Because the love that you bring,
Conquers all these things”
Rating: 8/10
Summary:
This album is Embrace’s best work to date. Whereas it isn’t as immediate as their other two albums the music and lyrics have come on in spades. Danny’s singing has also got an awful lot better, that said, I liked his old singing also. Whereas some people hated it with a vengeance!
From other reviews I have read of this album, the two I would like to point out are:
NMEs review where they usually love to knock Embrace gave this album a very respectable 8/10.
Q on the other hand gave this album 2 out of 5. The review though was insulting. The reviewer in ‘my opinion’ never even bothered listening to more than one song on the al
bum. For he took the worst lyric from the album and then stated that it was par for the course on the whole album. I do have to say this is not a bad reflection on Q as a magazine, on the whole the magazine is wonderful. The reviewers have frequently been wrong in the past though so that aspect of the magazine should be reviewed. For example:
Be here now by Oasis they gave 5/5 a few weeks later they were calling it a rubbish album.
The man who – Travis was called slow, boring and rubbish. The rating was 2/5 once the album became popular the magazine said that the reviewer had got it wrong and had since listened to it more and liked it!
Anyways, back to the subject matter. Buy this album, if you are a genuine music fan that had patience. For your patience will reap the rewards from this album J
Kev
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