Track Listing
1. Size of Your Life
2. Stop Playing Guitar
3. Suffer Never
4. Become One Anything One Time
5. Wake up Until 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
| Details | | Producer: | Stephen Street | | Distributor: | Alternative Dis. Alliance | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
The Promise Ring: Davey Von Bohlen (vocals, guitar); Jason Gnewikow (guitar, keyboards, percussion); Ryan Weber (guitar, bass); Dan Didier (keyboards, drums, percussion).
Additional personnel includes: Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (keyboards); Scott Schoenbeck (bass); Shalott Hazzard (background vocals).
Producers: Stephen Street, Mario Caldato Jr.
Engineers: Stephen Street, Cenzo Caldato, Jr., Robert Carranza.
Recorded at Jacobs Studios, Farnham, England; Sonora, MCJ, Los Angeles, California; Polish Moon, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
By the late 1990's The Promise Ring had propelled themselves to nearly the top rung of the ferociously melodic brand of music loosely labeled emocore. However, by 2002's WOOD/WATER, the Milwaukee-based quartet completed a transformation of sound begun on 1999's VERY EMERGENCY, an unabashedly poppy and breezy album, yet still unmistakably in the realm of irony-laden indie rock. The opening bars of WOOD/WATER's Wilcoesque, pensive "Get On The Floor" sees the more sedate band asserting "no more guitar songs, it's just nervous energy you're selling to me."
Gone are most of the fire and the sardonic energy of earlier releases, replaced by what practically amounts to an album of modern cowboy ballads, introspective and reflective, with hummable melodies. Far from being dilettantes or bandwagon-jumpers, the foursome led by the high, dulcet tones of Davey von Bohlen proves that it has the innate talent to capably reinvent its sound while retaining sincerity. And on tracks like the adorably self-deprecating "Stop Playing Guitar" and the dreamlike "Become One Anything One Time" with its mournful refrain "I'm just happy you stuck around," the sincerity gives way to sheer beauty.
Editorial Reviews
[Promise Ring trade] in their emo fare for a laid-back, alt-country pop vibe....the quartet developed a newly stripped-down and mellowed-out fell....[it] includes spacious arrangements, acoustic instrumentation and a focus on serious melodic interplay...
CMJ (04/22/2002)
8 out of 10 - ...An inspiring burst of twinkling melancholy...Few records this year will get as close to you as WOOD/WATER...
NME (05/25/2002)
7 out of 10 - ...The emo-turned-power-pop quartet have changed lanes yet again on the even-mannered WOOD/WATER...
Alternative Press (06/01/2002)
3 stars out of 5 - ...WOOD/WATER finds the Milwaukee-based quartet in increasingly introspective mode...this is arichly rewarding collection of lovingly realised songs augmented by subtle, spacious production.
Q (06/01/2002)
3 out of 5 stars - ...Less blatantly melodic, peppy and cloying than [past releases]...
Rolling Stone (05/09/2002)
'Suffer Never,' 'My Life Is At Home' and 'Become One Anything One Time,' are fantastic.
Alternative Press
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