Wednesday 14 October 2015

The Promise Ring

First off, I want to apologize for not being very active in the last two months or so. I've just been really busy and kind of put the blog to the side for a while. Excuses aside, I've got a few posts that will be added within the next week or so, and I'll get around to responding to all of your messages this week as well, since I also let those pile up in my state of procrastination. So again, sorry for disappearing for a while, but I'll try and keep this more updated in the future.


The Promise Ring were a four-piece emo/indie band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin that formed in 1995. They began just as singer/guitarist Davey von Bohlen's other band Cap'n Jazz were coming to an end. Despite the shared member, The Promise Ring always had more in common with bands like Jimmy Eat World or Braid than Cap'n Jazz and its numerous offspring (American Football, Joan of Arc, etc.) For one, The Promise Ring are very poppy. Their songs are fairly structured, with strong, sing-along choruses and lyrics that get stuck in your head. As they grew, this become more and more true, with Very Emergency being a quintessential power pop album, and their final album Wood/Water coming close to a full-on indie pop record featuring a lot of acoustic guitar. However, their earlier work features some mid-tempo songs and gentle guitar arpeggios in the vein of Sunny Day Real Estate and such. But what really defines this band is their second album, Nothing Feels Good, which is generally regarded as their best work, and for good reason. The songs on it are catchy, the instrumentation hoppy, and the production is tight and crisp. This could easily be considered one of the great albums of the 90's in the way Nirvana's Nevermind or Weezer's Pinkerton are. If you listen to one thing by this band, make sure it's Nothing Feels Good.

The Promise Ring had a fairly long life for a band in their corner of the musical universe. They broke up in 2002 after a seven-year run, with four full-lengths and numerous EP's to show for it. Davey von Bohlen and drummer Dan Didier formed Maritime, who are still active today. And in keeping tradition with the Cap'n Jazz family bands, The Promise Ring have reunited several times as well. They played one show in 2005, and a handful of shows in 2012, but no plans have been made beyond that. Anyway, here's their discography, an essential for any "emo" fan. Enjoy.

1. Jupiter
2. 12 Sweaters Red
3. Mineral Point

1. A Picture Postcard
2. Saturday
3. Scenes From Parisian Life

1. The Promise Ring - E. Texas Ave
2. Texas Is The Reason - Blue Boy

1. Everywhere In Denver
2. Red Paint
3. Heart Of A Broken Story
4. Scenes From France
5. Anne You Will Sing
6. My Firetower Flame
7. Between Pacific Coasts
8. A Picture Postcard
9. Somebody's Done For
10. The Sea Of Cortez
11. Run Down The Waterfall
12. We Don't Like Romance

1. Watertown Plank
2. Mineral Point
3. A Picture Postcard
4. Saturday
5. Scenes From Parisian Life
6. E. Texas Ave.
7. Miette
8. I Never Trusted The Russians

1. Is This Thing On?
2. Perfect Lines
3. Red & Blue Jeans
4. Why Did We Ever Meet
5. Make Me A Chevy
6. How Nothing Feels
7. A Broken Tenor
8. Raspberry Rush
9. Nothing Feels Good
10. Pink Chimneys
11. B Is For Bethlehem
12. Forget Me

1. Tell Everyone We're Dead
2. Good Looking Boys
3. American Girl [Version 02]

 1. Happiness Is All The Rage
2. Emergency! Emergency!
3. The Deep South
4. Happy Hour
5. Things Just Getting Good
6. Living Around
7. Jersey Shore
8. Skips A Beat (Over You)
9. Arms And Danger
10. All of My Everythings

1. Electric Pink
2. Strictly Television
3. American Girl (V. 01)
4. Make Me A Mixtape

1. Size Of Your Life
2. Stop Playing Guitar
3. Suffer Never
4. Become One Anything One Time
5. Wake Up April
6. Get On The Floor
7. Half Year Sun
8. My Life Is At Home
9. Letters To The Far Reaches
10. Bread And Coffee
11. Say Goodbye Good
12. Feed The Night

10 comments:

  1. You just made me smile from hear to hear. I've thinking about this awesome band all day and I thought "Man, I wish someone payed a little bit of attention to them." So really thank you. :)
    Sorry if I wrote anything wrong. I'm from Argentina, so you can figure it our why it's harder to write in english for me.

    p.s: don't disappear please :)

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. First of all many thanks for all your brilliant posts!
    The first song on Nothing Feels Good skips after about 43 seconds.

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  4. Killer! But you're missing the self titled ep. Which is on the horse latitudes albu. Just thought id mention that since the other eps are on

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  5. it´s amazing!!!
    im from Brasil and i like too much this band!tanks

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  6. Can you reupload these please? The site got shut down and I can't download the music

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  7. Looks like the site got shut down, could you reupload these please?

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