File Under: Emo rating: C+ tracks 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 related links The Promise Ring

A special note to the Promise Ring on their latest release Wood/Water: vocal effects and excessively long songs do not make your album any better or anymore groundbreaking. This new album can only really be considered new because it is the first time that the Promise Ring is playing these songs, but if you would like to hear them the first time around I would recommend listening to some Radiohead, Coldplay, and even The Counting Crows "Long December"(listen to "Bread and Coffee").

Also, excessive repetition of one word (excessive defined as more that 4 times) defiantly does not make your song any more marketable or even auditorily tolerable for that matter, "Stop Playing Guitar" and the insufferable six minute and thirty-six second "Say Goodbye Good". On the same note, don’t write songs about not liking that you’re a musician if you are one, ("Stop Playing Guitar", again, and "Get on the Floor") but maybe that’s what keeps them emo? The quality of the music itself isn’t too bad on a whole, and there is a track or two that I think I could listen to again "Letters to the Far Reaches" and, but on a whole this is defiantly not an album that would get play over any of my other CDs.

Upon receiving this CD I was under the impression that the Promise Ring were one of the premiere, up and coming, emo bands to watch, based on former touring partners (Jets to Brazil, Burning Airlines), being SXSW headliners, and future plans to open for Jimmy Eat World in Europe.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is the album that this band should have used to introduce them to a more mainstream listening group (since it is emo’s time to shine...or not depending on where you stand on the issue). Previous fans will find one bonus, a regular set of liner notes, sort of, in comparison to the bands former individual style (if you have any of the bands former releases you know what I’m talking about).

I’m having trouble accepting the fact that this is an Epitaph release; why would punk’s leading DIY label have any part in this release? Personally, I would only recommend this CD if you are a true Promise Ring fan, but who knows another listen or two and maybe it’ll grow on me, MAYBE.

Jason Cipriano is a Staff Writer. Contact him at jason@rockzone.com.