Promise Ring
Electric Pink
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Promise Ring
Electric Pink
Jade Tree, 2000
RiYL: Superchunk, Braid, Get Up Kids |
It's not all over for the Promise Ring. I still have faith in them as musicians and live performers. But their streak of getting progressively better with each recording, which started with their very first 7", comes to a dead halt with this extremely misguided CD single. Electric Pink, quite simply, should not have been released. The two outtakes from the Very Emergency sessions could have stayed locked away for the inevitable posthumous rarities compilation, the two new tracks sound like demos.
Chalk it up to the Braid syndrome. Release one great album, finally deliver on the promise you've been suggesting for years, then get so blinded by your success that you follow it with a glut of unnecessary junk. The Promise Ring, of course, haven't broken up yet, but there are ominous similarities between Electric Pink and the "Please Drive Faster" single which followed Braid's Frame & Canvas. For the first time, the band seems to have stopped to consider what's brought on its success. "Electric Pink" sounds like a parody of "Tell Everyone We're Dead" from the Boys + Girls EP which so nicely bridged Nothing Feels Good and Emergency. "Strictly Television" sounds alarmingly similar to "The Deep South." "American Girl" is a (misnumbered) remake of a song from the earlier single. The only entirely new-sounding song on the disc, the rather infectious "Make Me A Mixtape," is excruciatingly badly produced.
It's common knowledge that Davey vonBohlen isn't the most traditionally gifted singer in the world of indie rock, but good producers, using a mixture of coaching and clever mixing tricks, have made Davey's weaknesses into strengths (the band also tends to keep their vocals on the low side when playing live). Mike Zirkel, who recorded "Electric Pink" and "Mixtape," clearly has never listened to a Promise Ring song before in his life. "Pink" begins with an awful-sounding trebly bassline before vonBohlen's vocals come in, vastly overmixed, underreverbed, and painfully out of tune. J. Robbins' touch is made clear on "Television," where waves of rhythm guitars and deep, subtle bass help Davey's singing blend with the music rather than fighting against it. The more ambitious "American Girl" can't prop up thin songwriting by throwing acoustic guitars and keyboards at it, in retrospect, the spare treatment of the tune on the Boys + Girls disc sounds much better.
We can't blame all of Electric Pink's shortcomings on its producers, however. The Promise Ring didn't have the material for another release so soon after Very Emergency. One listen to the pallid lyrics and dull choruses of the first two songs makes it obvious. For $7.99, you're getting one badly recorded lousy song, two well-recorded lousy songs, and one badly recorded OK song. Not a smart buy by anyone's reckoning. Even the packaging -- which by the way, looks more lavender to me than pink -- is subpar compared toBoys + Girls' storytelling photography and Very Emergency's endearingly goofy bunnies and businessmen.
A lot of high-minded folk confuse simplicity with unoriginality. The Promise Ring's greatest asset, and the reason I will continue to go to bat for them even after this pretty disappointing release, is songs that are so captivating, vital, and enjoyable that you look past the simple chord changes and the basic rhythms.
On Electric Pink, the songwriting lapses quite badly, opening the band up to some very nasty criticisms indeed. Keep in mind it's not a full representation of the band, but rather a hastily assembled collection of leftovers cranked out to meet the understandably huge demand for new Promise Ring material. Ironically, it's the band's past successes that have paved the way for this disc's release. Too bad they were unable to resist temptation. These songs should have stayed in the vaults.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.