They couldn't have hoped for a better reception. The first night of Embrace's comeback tour is played out to tumultuous applause, the audience a roaring choir of waving hands and smiling faces. At times, Danny McNamara's vocals are almost superfluous. Presumably sensing the crowd are looking less for a singer and more for a focal point, he scales the Liquid Room's not insubstantial balcony, dozens of willing hands reaching up to secure him against the railing.

Embrace make it seem as if they have never been away, which is a natty piece of alchemy considering all the lean years they have endured. After their bestselling mid-1990s debut album, The Good Will Out, the Huddersfield band slipped slowly into commercial and critical inconsequentiality. When their third album, If You've Never Been, performed disappointingly, they parted company with their record label Hut.

Perhaps in a bid to recapture the glory days, the forthcoming album, Out of Nothing, was recorded with Youth, who produced many of their early singles. The five-piece doesn't seem to have changed much. Danny and guitarist brother Richard both sport fluffy fringes and mullets and have lost none of their taste for anthemic balladeering.

Indeed, it's noticeable that tonight's best songs come from that first album. Of the new tracks, opener Ashes arrives with a throbbing bounce and the stamp of promise, and the Chris Martin-penned Gravity is met with a keen roar, but too many numbers are forgettable examples of mop-headed indie - muddy and insignificant.

It's hard not to conclude that Embrace have the same qualities and failings they have always had. They still recall Oasis and the Verve, and their hearty soul is undeniably resonant. But even this triumphant return does little to shake the feeling that they are talented journeymen rather than nascent superstars; strong and true and potent in the right context, but rather forgettable outside of it.

· At Shepherd's Bush Empire, London W12 (0870 771 2000), on Friday. Then touring.