PROMISE ME TOMORROW – THROUGH IT ALL ALBUM REVIEW

A quick search for “Promise Me Tomorrow” on Google images will expose a selection of pictures of various trashy romance fiction novels. “Promise Me Tomorrow” is, it seems, a very popular name for books about heaving bosoms and heroines being held tightly against the strong chest of an adorable, yet strangely distant and troubled heart surgeon.

There are, of course, some images of a band from Kent, who share their name with the works of (doubtless) appalling fiction. Fortunately, the band’s music is somewhat better than the prose of their sub-literary namesakes.

Following on from their single, “You Haven’t Seen the Best of Me” released earlier this year, comes Promise Me Tomorrow’s eight track mini-album, “Through it All”. It features that single’s A and B sides (in fact, there are two versions of the B side, “Knockbacks and Heart Attacks” here) along with five other new songs.

“Through It All” offers more of the US Punk/thrashy Californian rock that Promise Me Tomorrow introduced with their single. And, as was more than evident on that single, the band are more than prepared to wear their hearts on their collective sleeve.

A prevailing theme on the album is that of offering comfort: “take it slow tonight/I don’t want to let you down” from the original single’s B-side find its theme repeated in “More Than You Know” with the lines “don’t be afraid/things will never stay the same/and who knows/it could all be yours one day” – and again in “All or Nothing” with the chorus “hold on tight to this ride/there are the best days of your life”.

Half of Promise Me Tomorrow’s lyrics concern comforting those who have been treated badly; the other half concerns being hard-done-by yourself. “I’ve been playing your little games inside my head” runs a line from “Go Get ‘em Kid”. Meanwhile “No One said it was Easy (Walk Away)” features lyrics like: “If I can breathe on my own/then I don’t need you”.

In fact, there’s a lot of breathing going on with Promise Me Tomorrow; they’ve got a whole respiratory system of lyrics inhaling and exhaling their way through the album, with mentions of lungs and breath or breathing. And when they’re not breathing, they’re trying to stop falling down – or stop other people fall down.

These are fairly standard analogies and metaphors for subjects which come as standard for songs in this particular musical pigeon hole. The variations on the theme of mistreatment make Promise Me Tomorrow perfect poster boys for the US punk genre.

And when you add to this the thrashing guitars, shouty harmonies and bashing to bits of drums and it’s easy to see why the future’s looking good for Promise Me Tomorrow. National radio airplay and a profile in Kerrang!!! magazine is no mean feat.

Pay attention. Promise Me Tomorrow are in it for the long haul.

Find out more about the band on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/promisemetomorrowuk