And so to the presentation of the band that is Embrace. They have been more or less a band since 1992. Richard came up with the name and there is nothing special about it, it was just a name that they thought they wouldn't be embarressed with.

Today the band has five members. Brothers Danny and Richard McNamara on vocals and guitar respectively. Steve Firth on the bass. Mike Heaton on the drums and Mickey Dale who is the keyboardplayer. On the albums they play more than just those, for example, both Danny and Mickey play the guitar on different songs while Mike plays the clarinet on "Drawn From Memory".

Which brings us to the albums. Embrace have released three albums so far, "The Good Will Out", "Drawn From Memory" and "If You've Never Been".

In 1998 when Embrace released their debut album they hit success immediately...though it can't be said that Embrace hit success immediately as they'd already been a group for a long time prior to the success. Many singles released from "The Good Will Out" had an anthemic sound and so the words anthem, epic, grand, big etc followed them around the press.
This is half of the truth as the album also contains very mellow songs such as "Fireworks". The third type of song on "The Good Will Out" were the rockier ones like "One Big Family" and more. When you hear these you can understand why the media would compare Embrace to Oasis since some of them do have an Oasis feel to them. However, knowing both bands rather well I would say they're not very similiar bands.

Mickey Dale was not an official members of Embrace until October 20th 1998. Before that he played with the band on record and live but was a so called unofficial member. To make a long story short, Danny joined Richard's band and started Embrace and Steve and Mike joined later.

Embrace's second album "Drawn From Memory" is quite a bit different from their first album. What you can clearly hear on it though is developement. While "The Good Will Out" was a good album it lacked versatality, something "Drawn From Memory" has no shortage of. You only have to listen to the singles released from the album to realize that...yet there is more versatality than just the singles.
It has to be mentioned that due to whatever reasons "Drawn From Memory" has reached lower commercial levels than "The Good Will Out". Perhaps because the latter was very much hyped.

Embrace continued their sonic work and were able to present a new baby to the world by the fall of 2001, affectionately called "If You've Never Been". This was a very mellow album and perhaps it suggests the bandmembers are aging. Either way it's the epitome of a nightsky. This album was very well produced but lacked the diversity of "Drawn From Memory".

So finally in 2002 Embrace reached the end with their former record company Hut. For their swansong they released "Fireworks", a compilation of all the band's singles. And then it was hello to Independiente, house of bands such as Travis. Embrace are at the moment busy recording their debut for Independiente and it is not yet known when the next release will come. They have however, at the of 2003, played three nights in Leeds to small audiences.

For individual presentation of each member click their names below. If you consider any information inaccurate or would like to add something you can always e-mail me.