Drawn From Memory by Embrace (Hut)

Only very rarely do you get an album as astonishing as this; Embrace's second album and follow up to the gold selling debut The Good Will Out. For while that was an album of great songs it suffered from over-familiarity, a flawed track listing and a grandiose ambition that was impossible to realise.

This is a record that has no obvious favourite stand out track because every one is so outstandingly different and fantastic. After the forty-eight minutes fly by, you will want to put it back on again and again and again. So much soul, passion and effort has been put into every element of this record that it leaves so much of the current music scene stalling behind it.

Opening with the breathtaking 'The Love it Takes', that moves from a tender song of love and intent to a chorus that hits the sky and a middle section guitar workout that grooves along with such ease that it could be taken from a seventies funk record. With this opening you know something special is developing. While track two is the familiar but fantastic single 'You're Not Alone', three tracks in you are greeted by another radical departure in the form of 'Save Me'. This is Sly and the Family Stone jamming with the Stones, and is sublime. 'Yeah You' is the fantastic collision of Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr, while 'New Adam New Eve' is what Oasis should, but unfortunately, don't sound like.

The trade mark Embrace ballad is represented in the title track and 'Liars Tears' but more fragile and tender than ever before. But it is the closing two tracks, 'I Wouldn't Wanna Happen to You' and 'I Had A Time' that seal this record as a definite classic. This record could make Embrace, but even if it doesn't it is a glorious record that anyone who loves music will fall for.

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by ChrisM