Promise (CD)

If you’re continuously searching the margins for lost artifacts of the pop pantheon, you can find your daily dose in late period exponents of pure, lean, Beatlesque early ’70s power pop, Promise. Originally issued in 1980 on the Boulder, Colorado, area band’s own Cumulus label, their eponymous debut is filled with melodic, beatific blasts of pure pop, replete with ringing, jangly guitars, and rollicking crunch. Co-led by singer-songwriter’s/guitarists Curt Mangan and Danny Mey-with aid provided by the just right rhythms of bassist Randy Jones and drummer Gary York-the group created an album with precious little allying it to the punk-inspired power pop or prescient “New Wave” of the time, instead choosing to hone in on a classicist pop sound highly indebted to those famous moptops from Liverpool.

Abetted by the fact some of the group’s members had been playing together since their teenage combo’s of the mid-’60s the album carries an “out of time” flair across surging rockers and mournful balladry.

Got Kinda Lost Records is ecstatic to give this benchmark of privately-pressed power pop another chance to shine.

RIYL: Badfinger, Big Star, early Cheap Trick, Emitt Rhodes, Raspberries, Liverpool Echo, the Scruffs, Shoes, Dwight Twilley Band, etc.

“An exciting, terrific British Invasion-styled guitar pop album full of catchy, memorable hooks, displaying a tougher, ‘rock’ edge than most of its ilk and some excellent softer songs. Equally recommended to power pop and ’60s rock fans.” – (Aaron Milenski, The Acid Archives)

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