‘Come Back To What You Know’ was one of Embrace’s first big hits.
While not forgotten by fans, the group have been hiding away since their 2006 chart topper ‘This New Day’.
Frontman, Danny McNamara, said the lengthy hiatus had not been planned – but he said they had been resolute in their shared determination to better their 1998 debut, ‘The Good Will Out’.
“We just wanted to get back to how we were and why we got into being in a band in the first place,” he explained.
“When you get to a certain level of success the money making machine takes over a little bit.
“You start losing sight of why you got into it in the first place. We certainly started feeling like that so we just decided to take a break and remind ourselves of why we became a band.
“That’s one of the reasons we decided to call this new album ‘Embrace’ as it feels like a brand new start for us.”
In the modern era of an album every other year it seems incredible that the five piece have taken so long to produce their sixth studio album.
But Danny said they had been working on it “full time” since his brother Richard had come up with the track Refugees about five years ago.
“It just set the bar for the rest of the record,” he said.
“We knew the album wouldn’t be done until we’d done at least another nine songs that were as good or better than that. It’s just taken this long to get it right.
“We wrote over 500 songs for this album so it’s been a long, tough, process. But our best albums always seem to come out of those difficult processes.
“The first album was difficult and the fourth was really difficult and they’re our other two really strong albums.
“We have felt like we were on the verge of having the album finished for the past four years.
“I’ve been saying to mates, ‘It’s going to be out in a couple of months’ and then it went down to a couple of weeks.
“I said ‘next week’ for about three months. But eventually we did get it finished.
“When we did, there wasn’t any big celebration or anything we just all slumped in a corner exhausted.”
Danny said while the years holed up in the studio had been tough, they had never considered calling it a day.
He said: “There have been a few moments where I’ve thought I can’t do this anymore.
“But we’ve been the same line-up since we started. How many bands can say that? It’s really rare.
“We just all believe in the music so much. We all really respect each other.
“We argue a lot and we all have a different view but there’s a certain amount of love or we wouldn’t be together, as we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs.”
The band’s self-titled album is not set to hit the shops until April 28 but fans don’t have long to wait for new material as a 4-track EP is set for release on February 17.
A video for the title track of the EP, Refugees, was shot in Halifax and was written and directed by the band themselves.
And Danny said the concept, which shows him lifeless with hundreds of lines or ‘five bar gates’ drawn on his body, had been devised to depict the struggle they had all been through as the days, weeks and months ticked by.
“We feel like we’ve been in limbo,” he said.
“The lines on my body are about that as much as anything.
“It’s not just about my professional life, it’s also our personal lives – it catches it all.
“We feel like we’ve been in prison ticking off the weeks, but it’s been a self-imposed prison.
“That’s one of the hardest things, as we’ve done it to ourselves.”
Embrace have already made a low-key return performing at a number of ‘secret gigs’ with more due to be announced soon.
Danny said the fans had been fantastic and he couldn’t wait to get back to performing again.
“The response has been amazing,” said Danny.
“The new songs are going down as well as the old favourites, which never happens.
“People usually want to hear the songs they know but at these secret gigs cheers for the new songs have been louder.
“Everybody’s been asking if we’re going to do headline slots for festivals, it’s almost like we’ve never been away.
“It’s really good to be back.”
