No More Apologies is the fifth album from Irish rock band A House

A House

A House was an Irish band from the 1980s to the 1990s, recognized for the clever, "often bitter or irony laden lyrics of [frontman] Dave Couse ... bolstered by the [band's] seemingly effortless musicality". The single "Endless Art" is one of their best known charting successes. A House were managed...

. Released in 1996, it was A House's final studio album.

Reception

No More Apologies was generally well received, but reviewers tended to see it as an explicit swansong. Q Magazine

Q (magazine)

Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...

gave it four stars (from five) recommending it "for all who love beauty best when it is bruised". NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

was much less enthusiastic, awarding 5/10 to "by no means a bad album" which nonetheless seemed flat compared to the "near-masterpiece" that was its predecessor, Wide-Eyed and Ignorant

Wide-Eyed and Ignorant

Wide-Eyed and Ignorant is the fourth album from Irish rock band A House. It features the single "Here Come the Good Times", which was A House's only entry in the UK Top 40, at number 40....

. The Irish Times described an album by a band in a "relaxed and resigned mood ... accepting their fate and lack of fortune with a philosophical air," but still capable of the odd "barbed word" and subtle touches in melody and guitar. Allmusic, awarding the album 3 stars, likewise notes "a band coming to grips with its place in the universe" although "in a better world Couse

Dave Couse

Dave Couse is a musician, producer, and radio DJ. He was the lead singer and main song writer with Irish band A House and has released three albums as a solo artist...

 and company would have become the stars they deserved [sic]" while in the real world, "listeners were still lucky to have them". An elegiacal article in the Irish Times later in the year said "A House is far more important than U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

," albeit in the rather special sense that A House's achievement was to survive as a properly Irish rock band which did not disappear, like so many others, under U2's shadow, and actually succeeded in producing a series of "evolving albums culminating" in No More Apologies. The article also notes almost unanimous praise for No More Apologies in Ireland, with the exception of Hot Press

Hot Press

Hot Press is a fortnightly music and political magazine based in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a circulation of 19,215 during 2007...

, and that Les Inrockuptibles

Les Inrockuptibles

Les Inrockuptibles is a French cultural magazine. Started as a monthly magazine in 1986, it became weekly in 1995. The name is a play on "Les Incorruptibles", the French title of the American television series The Untouchables...

in France had nominated it for album of the year.

Track Listing

1. "Start"
2. "Into The Light"
3. "Cry easily"
4. "No More Apologies"
5. "My Sweet Life"
6. "Sisters Song"
7. "Twist & Squeeze"
8. "Love Is"
9. "Without Dreams"
10. "Just Because"
11. "I Can't Change"
12. "Clotheshorse"
13. "My Mind"
14. "Broken"
15. "Happy Ending"