Embrace's McNamara reveals mental illness bout influenced new album
Entertainment

Embrace's McNamara reveals mental illness bout influenced new album

EMBRACE frontman Danny McNamara has revealed how a bout of mental illness helped inspire the band's new self-titled record and inspired them to make up for their eight-year hiatus.

The second-generation Irishman explained that he is in a race against time to revive the chart-topping group, now that he is free from the “narcissistic shell” he had been trapped in for the past 15 years.

“It’s amazing how much of your life just goes by,” he said. “On our first album we called it The Good Will Out because I felt everything would work out in the end. I’d just recovered from a bout of mental illness.

“On this album, I’m recovered from all that now, but what I can see is life doesn’t work out in the end.”

He added that the songs featured on Embrace carry pessimistic messages to reflect his new approach to life.

Speaking of this new found attitude, McNamara declared: “In the end you die. It doesn’t work out. You die alone and usually scared. There’s no cure for it. There’s darkness there. On a lot, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. But what it does do is make your life a lot more vital.”

The five piece’s independently-issued sixth album Embrace is their first full-length since 2006, when the band decided to take a break following a successful run of scoring three number one albums.

It entered the album chart at number five on Sunday, two places below Irish singer Imelda May with her new record Tribal.

Embrace are currently on tour across Britain and are set to perform at this summer’s V Festival and T In The Park.