With a debut in 2014, the Electro-MetalCore band I Promised Once is still a relatively new band. Even so they managed to a headliner tour throughout Europe already in 2016. At the end of 2016 they released their third mini-album, and shortly after they announced a cooperation with the French touring agency 33 Degrees. Hearing that gets my hopes up, it promises a lot of good!
The band consists of three Japanese and two German guys, and their music gives a new vibe with a fresh mix of grunting, clean vocals, and a modern twist. And their new album The Awakening definitely shows us how passionate they are!
Tracklist:
01. The World Against Us
02. White Nights
03. Drown With Me
04. Winter Is Coming
05. The Walker part 1 : Realization
06. Broken Dreams
Songs like Drown With Me, show their expertise in production quality, pleasantly combining clean vocals with a mix of electronic popmusic, metalcore and djent. The band also showed they know how to please everyone in the Metalcore scene, variating between Softcore metal and Hard Metalcore beautifully. This is clearly noticeable in songs like Drown With Me, Winter is Coming, and The Walker, where the band supports the clean vocals with piano and harpsichord.
They create a nice flow with the order of the tracks too. Drown With Me is followed by Winter is Coming. It takes the calmness left from the previous track nicely and flows it perfectly into some heavier guitar play. Then they up the tempo with Broken Dreams and add grunts, creating a great climax to the build-up they created.
And some fans might recognise the last song. Broken Dreams is a remastered version of the original song from their very first album and a strong track to mosh on during lives.
I would describe the tension throughout the album with a U-chart. It starts off with heavy sounds and upbeat tracks and gets calmer towards the middle. Then they build up again, and end it with a bang with Broken Dreams. The album combines typical MetalCore with Djent and gives the listener a short but varied and strong experience. I’d say the quality of the album has stayed the same as before, but you can definitely feel they band members are gaining more experience and are improving vastly. New albums pop up at a rapid speed too, so I don’t expect it will take long before the next one comes out.
I Promised Once would definitely be more at home in the heavier Metalcore scene, but they decided to show a different side of them with this album. I personally really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it! And I’m looking forward to hearing more of them in the future!
Rating: 70/100
