Embrya
| Embrya | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Maxwell | ||||
| Released | June 10, 1998 | |||
| Genre | Neo soul | |||
| Length | 62:57 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | Maxwell, Stuart Matthewman | |||
| Maxwell chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Chicago Sun-Times |  |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
| Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
| Los Angeles Times | |
| Q | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
| Spin | 7/10 |
| USA Today | |
Embrya is the second studio album by American recording artist Maxwell, released on June 30, 1998, by Columbia Records. As on his 1996 debut album Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, he collaborated with record producer and Sade collaborator Stuart Matthewman. A neo soul album, Embrya features heavy basslines, string arrangements, and an emphasis on groove over melodies. It has themes of love and spirituality.
Embrya sold more than one million copies and garnered Maxwell a new alternative fanbase, but confounded urban consumers and was not well received by most critics. The album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
With a lesser jazz emphasis than his debut album, Embrya continues the trend towards heavy basslines and string arrangements, and it focuses on themes such as love and spirituality. However, the album features more of an emphasis on groove than melodies. Its production sound contains bassy, electronic and slight syncopated beats. Maxwell has defined the album's title as "an approaching growing transition thought to be contained but destined for broader perception."
Embrya was originally received unfavorably by most critics. In the Chicago Tribune, Greg Kot wrote that the record "functions primarily as background music, sustaining its contemplative tone and percolating groove almost too well".Ann Powers of The New York Times called Maxwell "an expert seducer" and the music "the aural equivalent of lotion rubbed on one's back by someone interesting", but believed the lyrics lacked substance.Greg Tate wrote in Spin that the album "comes off as a tad New Agey, art-rock pretentious, emotionally calculated, and sappy."Dream Hampton, writing in The Village Voice, said that the "listless and unfocused" songwriting does not redeem the "ridiculous, loaded song titles" and found the music "lazy": "The band drones along as if in some somnambulant session that never ends." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau cited "Luxure: Cococure" as a "choice cut", indicating "a good song on an album that isn't worth your time or money".Stephen Thomas Erlewine deemed Embrya "a bit of a sophomore stumble, albeit one with promising moments", while writing in AllMusic, "[Maxwell] overstuffs his songs with ideas that lead nowhere". In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Arion Berger found the songs monotonous and called the album "unfocused and pretentious ... full of overwrought, underwritten songs with obscure, fancy titles revolving around a sort of sexual gnosticism."
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