Promises

The other night, on a binger of listening to fullalbums on YouTube, set to auto-play, I, your lyricallyfaithful correspondent, happened across the misty andmelodious sounds of the Scottish indie-rock grouppleasantly known as We Were Promised Jetpacks. I wasimmediately hooked by the steady rifting and uniqueaccentuated vocals of the opening track to These FourWalls, the band’s debut album. It’s thunder and it’s lightning and it’s all things toofrightening sings lead vocalist Adam Thompson with asoft gusto probably native to the band’s hometown ofEdinburgh. What began as a first-place-winning act at ahigh school talent show has grown into the blissfulstylings of the fully grown indie-rock group. With a folk-rockesque undertone and a punk-rockvibe, its no wonder Promised Jetpacks were able to breakthe top thirty in the 2009 US Billboard Heartseekers chart.Borrowing from such influences as Frightened Rabbit and

The Twilight Sad, the group finds its style very early onin their first album, These Four Walls. Listening to this fifty-minute length sequence, yourfaithful correspondent couldn’t help but feel like an angst-full Scottish teenager head-banging his way through thefast-paced rhythmic-vibe of songs like Roll Up YourSleeve and your correspondent’s personal favoriteMoving Clocks Run Slow. The band also takes a creativeand somewhat poetic approach in A Half Built House––areference to the album’s cover art which features a housesplit in twain, two half-built houses––in which the bandlays down their instruments for an eerie and mysteriousHAM radio broadcast. Like a woman speaking to anastronaut in space, saying Houston Houston. Aninteresting break in the band’s sound to showcase theirpoeticism. As an avid Alternative Rock lover, I love this band.Everything about them—the guitars, the drums, thechorus and vocals—screams passion. The kind of innate

artistry that allows people to empathize is a remarkablequality, and it is one that this band possesses. I’d be lyingif I said I had only listened through the album once. To beperfectly honest, it took me an entire week to listen tosomething different. But for that week of binging thesame album through and through, I felt my heart beatalong with the tempo. It gave me shivers and made myhairs stand straight up. This, I believe, is the feeling offeeling music inside yourself. So if you’re into quality guitarsmanship and enjoythe charm of a Scottish accent, this is, for sure, a band tocheck out. Their discography includes These Four Walls,In The Pit of My Stomach, and Unravelling. They tourlocally but, who knows, maybe they’ll fly back over theAtlantic for another few gigs. That is, if they ever getwhat they were promised.