The Promise Ring brings it hard

Milwaukee indie band promises to pack the 'Sco Wednesday night

In the world of independent rock there are few bands more talked about than the Promise Ring. With their latest release Very Emergency, on indie rock powerhouse label Jade Tree, the Promise Ring is likely to become one of the best-selling non-mainstream bands in recent history. And for good reason.

Very Emergency transcends the stereotypes of the increasingly stigmatized emo trend - a trend in which the P-Ring were among the founding fathers. In a 10 song 60s style pop-tinged tribute to the redefinition of modern love, the Promise Ring has it all. It is produced with the huge guitar energy of the band's live show, performed with the sensibility that comes as second nature to a band that spend more time on the road than not, and held together with the lyrical sweetness that will have every teenage girl from Long Island to Long Beach starry eyed.

Most importantly, with Very Emergency the Promise Ring does what almost no band that gets big can do. They get better.

But getting big is not so easy. Appearing in Teen People as the band to listen to for the hot "new sound of emo" can do some pretty bad things to a band's reputation with the indie rock elite, and their appeal to the masses has put the band in a critical light by underground music die-hards. The relative flood of press has done little to the direction of the band. Criticized for being too poppy, they get poppier. Think they're big now? They're getting bigger.

The landslide of positive Promise Ring press first started in the summer of '97 with the release of Nothing Feels Good. Produced by J. Robbins of D.C.'s heralded (and now defunct) Jawbox, the album was a breakthrough for the indie rock world in that it made almost every major music critics' top 10 lists, not to mention a video airing on MTV's 120 Minutes. Though unaccustomed to the spotlight they into which they were suddenly thrust, The Promise Ring faired well, selling out shows all over the free world, including 1998's CMJ festival in New York City, a virtual who's who of the independent music scene.

And they're coming. It may be hard for an average Obie to believe that people actually pay five whole dollars to see a rock and roll show, but this might be the most popular event to hit the 'Sco until a dragged out Josh Ritter performs '80s songs about safer sex at quarter beers.

The Promise Ring is sure to fill the house, drawing largely from Cleveland and surrounding areas. And if you're smart enough or lucky enough or rock and roll enough to put aside the homework that you would've put aside anyway to see the Promise Ring at the 'Sco Wednesday night, disappointment will beimpossible.

The Promise Ring will rock and roll at the 'Sco, Wednesday, November 17. Admission is $5 with OCID, $8 without.

Things just getting good: Milwaukee's The Promise Ring perform with Dismemberment Plan next Wednesday. (photo courtesy of Jade Tree)