Embrace, one of the most successful UK bands of the ’90s and ’00s, are set to reissue their chart-topping albums Out of Nothing and This New Day for the first time on 180-gram vinyl this October 30th on Craft Recordings. This New Day will be available worldwide and Out of Nothing will be available worldwide excluding North America. The long-sought-after reissues were cut at London’s Metropolis Studios and will come with printed inner sleeves.
Both reissues are available to pre-order today here.
There will be a limited-edition red vinyl pressing of Out of Nothing, which will be released via the band’s store and UK independent record shops on October 30th.
On the forthcoming activity, frontman Danny McNamara said,
“It’s great to be celebrating two very special records from the band’s catalogue in this way. We’d been dropped by our previous record company before we made Out of Nothing and pretty much written off as a band, so to come back with the biggest and most successful record of our career to date was nothing short of a miracle—people were calling it ‘the best comeback since Lazarus!’ And then to follow-up that success with This New Day and another number one album was amazing. It was a magical time for the band.”
Formed in the early ’90s, and having performed under numerous different names and with a less than consistent line-up, Embrace, as we know them, came to be in 1996 with a line-up that remains to this day—brothers Danny and Richard McNamara, bassist Steve Firth, keyboardist Mickey Dale and drummer Mike Heaton.
Releasing the indie anthem “All You Good Good People” through taste-maker label Fierce Panda in 1997 followed by “Fireworks” and “One Big Family,” they went on to release their debut album The Good Will Out in June 1998 and went straight in at number one making it one of the fastest-ever-selling debut albums by a British artist. Their second and third albums soon followed. In 2000 they released Drawn from Memory followed by If You’ve Never Been in 2001, both breaking into the top 10, but they were dropped by their label. After a hiatus of three years, the band were signed to Independiente Records, and with the release of Out of Nothing in 2004, they were catapulted back to the top of the charts, in no small part thanks to Coldplay’s Chris Martin who wrote the hit single “Gravity” for the album.
Danny first heard the song when Coldplay were still playing it as part of their early live sets:
“I’d already heard ‘Gravity’ ‘cause they’d played it at a gig and I remember telling Chris that I thought it was a really beautiful song. Like ‘Trouble’ or ‘The Scientist.’”
But it was a phone call in 2004 from Chris, spurred on by then-wife Gwyneth Paltrow, where they were officially offered the track.
Danny continues,
“In the end, Chris thought the song sounded too much like Embrace for Coldplay to use. I remember when he rang me up to ask me about it; he was really sheepish and worried about how he might come across. Gwyneth was in the background pushing him into it, saying ‘go on ask him, ask him …’”
GuitaristRichard McNamara continues,
“We were pretty much into the mixing stage of the album, I think we were working on a couple of final songs, so we kind of dismissed the offer out of hand because we had so much faith in what we’d already recorded, the potential backlash just didn’t seem necessary. But after a night of soul searching, we all figured, ‘Come on, guys. It’s a great song by one of the world’s best songwriters, and he’s handing it to us on a plate … we’d be crazy not to at least have a go!’”
The single charted at number seven and catapulted the band onto UK TV and the airwaves. Danny attests, “… we love it. It saved our career!”
Check it out, below
The album went on to be their most successful album to date, selling two times platinum in the UK with singles “Gravity” followed by “Ashes” and “Looking as You Are,” which both peaked at number 11, and finally “A Glorious Day” reached number 28.
The years 2004 and 2005 were incredible for the band, giving them a huge turn in fortunes and making them one of the most in-demand and played bands of that time. Out of Nothing put Embrace back where they belonged.
In 2006, they released their fifth album This New Day, which was met with huge anticipation and received great acclaim from critics and fans alike. Again topping the UK charts, the band took a different approach to the songwriting, making it a whole band affair as opposed to just Danny and Richard. The lead single from the album was the anthemic “Natures Law,” which entered the charts at number two, making it the band’s highest-charting single to date.
Track listings:
Out of Nothing
A1 Ashes 4:20
A2 Gravity 4:39
A3 Someday 5:38
A4 Looking As You Are 4:04
A5 Wish ’Em All Away 3:58
B1 Keeping 4:31
B2 Spell It Out 4:53
B3 A Glorious Day 3:51
B4 Near Life 5:46
B5 Out Of Nothing
This New Day
A1 No Use Crying 3:44
A2 Natures Law 4:09
A3 Target 4:30
A4 Sainted 4:20
A5 I Cannot Come Down 4:15
B1 Celebrate 3:34
B2 Exploding Machines 5:21
B3 Even Smaller Stones 4:31
B4 The End Is Near 4:40
B5 This New Day
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