EMBRACE

I was rather impressed with this young band from Hemel Hempstead. I guess the first thing that struck me was the fine cover artwork. upon my first listen there is a strong Marillion influence with opening track 'tearing at the heartstrings' (being my favourite) this is a strong number with excellent lyrics and powerful drumming. next we have almost a pop song with 'falling down' which reminds me a a lot of 80's era pendragon. The album continues with strong songs and rich melodies which should provide prog rock fans of yesteryear with plenty of good 80's poppy, pompy prog. i must just bring miff's vocals to attention here, although he has a very distinctive voice, I found it was a bit dubious to start with and thought he sounded a bit like gary chandler from jadis! but i soon got used to it and now think his voice is great, just unique. An impressive second album, better than the first Can we excpect another release soon? I definitely hope so. A great addition to any progman's walkman!

Some albums click on you, some do not. Some albums do not because they are very bad in fact. "Embrace" can't serve as an example of that kind of album - it's pretty listenable, but boring and average in the very sense of this world. I like Neo Prog, but that's too much. I don't blame the band in low quality of production - this is what every musician's faced with - their material is just rather weak. Few songs are worthy of checking but not more. Not recommended in general, but if you're a genre's die-hard fan, try to find it. Possibly you'll enjoy it more than me.