構成数 | 1枚

合計収録時間 | 00:56:28

The seventh studio long-player from the stalwart English alt-rock outfit, the aptly named Love Is a Basic Need serves up ten expertly crafted specimens of Coldplay-era Brit-pop that invoke the highs and lows of devotion. Leaving behind the electronic flourishes of their eponymous 2014 reboot, it's tempting to call the album a return to Embrace's late-'90s roots. While there's no denying the stadium-sized grandiosity of midtempo, butane lighter-ready power ballads like "Wake Up Call," "Never," and the soaring, "Hey Jude"-aping title track, Love Is a Basic Need has more in common with the band's 2004 comeback LP Out of Nothing, which featured the slow-burning Chris Martin (Coldplay)-penned hit "Gravity," than it does the nosebleed seat-bating, guitar-driven U2-isms that propelled their 1998 debut into the stratosphere. Still, it's good to hear Embrace playing to their strengths again, and despite its architectural and lyrical mundanity, Love Is a Basic Need succeeds, more than a few times, in sonically replicating the arm-hair-raising rush of amour. ~ James Christopher Monger