- Face the
Promise
- Bob Seger's 16th
Studio Album
- Released September 12,
2006
The Seger File
Reviews
Many Seger File readers
have shared their reviews of Face the Promise. Here's the
first batch. I'll add more as I have time.
Just Added
--
"We've Got
Seger Back: We Sure Do Need Him." -- by Fontaine Brown
(formerly Doug Brown, of Doug Brown and the
Omens).
After 10 years off the
scene, an artist needs to drop something that shows he can
still do it. This one completely reestablishes Bob as
the Big Chief of the Nothern Lands. It's a feast for
old Seger fans (like me) and a peek at some possible new
roads in the old territory...read
more.
A freight train coming,
and Seger's driving! -- by Bill Wolski
"I bought my first copy
over iTunes, because I couldn't wait the 15 minutes it would
have taken me to get to the store. Then, once I
finished listening to it, I stopped by the store to get a
real copy. God, how I've missed that
sound."...read
more.
- "Enjoy This to the
Marrow..." -- by Sean from Iowa
I was born the week "Back
in '72" was released. First week of 1973. I guess I first
"discovered" Seger when we had "Stranger in Town" on 8-track
upon its release in '78, and we played it pretty regularly
for months...read
more.
- The Crown Jewel
-- by Chip Stewart
Just one word....
WOW. No wait...a few
other thoughts too. Maybe
I'm over reacting but this just hits me as a defining
album...one that is the crown jewel of a great artist's
career...read
more.
- Not Quite a
Bullet -- by Randy Cepuch
Here's my attempt at a
balanced review of Face the Promise. I'd give
the album a "B" overall. It's better than most Seger
albums but not up to, say, Live Bullet or
Beautiful Loser...read
more.
- Lives Up to the
Seger Promise --
by Gord Hunter
Bob Seger on a
Harley. Threatening skies and wheat fields rolling off
to the horizon. It's an iconic image that encompasses
everything we think we know about the man. He's the
heartland's storyteller. He's the blue collar, Midwest
rebel. 25 years later he's still charging against the
wind...read
more.
- Wisdom and
Introspection -- by Marty Carlisle
An album of wisdom and
introspection...Only one complaint: There are no fluid
moments on this record where Seger holds his listeners
spellbound...read
more.
Sounding Better than
Ever -- by Ron Olson
Wait For Me while I try to
catch up...I'm now listening to Face The Promise for
the third time. Can't get enough...read
more.
Worth the Wait --
by Scott Cohen
Eleven years. I have
waited eleven years for Bob Seger to release new material. I
still remember buying his last CD, "It's a Mystery" on
cassette...read
more.
An Amazing Album --
by Allen Dodge
It is such an amazing
album... I think what most of the songs say to me is that
Seger is getting back to his roots...read
more.
Listening All Night
-- by Mark Morris
So I sat here all night,
listening to the album over and over again, posting my brief
reviews of each song over on the Segernet
site....read
more.
Wreck these
Speakers -- by Scott Sparling
The Phase-Techs in the
living room are history. Damn it, Bob. I really loved those
speakers. I guess I love your new CD more.
Face the Promise is
loud, passionate, smart, rocking, and intimate. It does what
a Seger album should do -- it shows his amazing breadth as a
songwriter, musician and performer. And it does was a great
album must do -- it goes straight into your chest and your
feet and your heart, and stays there...read
more.
 - WARNING:
The music you are about
- to enjoy is
extremely hot.
October 1,
2006
Seger on
FTP
Seger took the Detroit
Free Press on a track by track tour of Face the Promise.
Here's what he said:
- Seger, Track by
Track
- by Brian
McCollum
- Detroit Free
Press
- September 12,
2006
Writing and rewriting,
tweaking and tinkering down to the wire, Bob Seger spent
a decade on his latest album.
Today marks the release
of "Face the Promise," a 12-song effort recorded in
Nashville and near Clarkston with longtime engineer David
Cole of Los Angeles.
"It's real easy to get
snowblind working on a group of songs for that long,"
says Cole. "My hat's off to Bob for staying the course,
and pushing himself as an artist."
Seger and Cole sat down
with the Free Press to break down the tracks.
1. "Wreck This
Heart"
Seger: "It's about the
balance of family and work. I was banging along on an
electric guitar and started singing 'Wreck this Heart' to
the chords and said, 'Oh, wow, is that cool.' And that's
how it happens: I'll sing 200 times and not get anything.
Then on 201 I'll sing something cool and, boom, I've got
a song."
Cole: "I'm excited
there's so much rock on this album. Fans will gravitate
toward those songs."
2. "Wait for
Me"
Cole: "I know they made
a video that showcases a younger Bob kind of guy on a
motorcycle with the beautiful girl. It's the director's
interpretation of that song, and invokes the heartland,
and hopefully captures some broader audience for him. But
when Bob explained the song to me, it's really a message
to his kids."
Seger: "I don't think
anybody got it. In my mind, you've got to have the
discipline to allow your kids to make their own mistakes.
... Sometimes I've got to get away, but I'll always come
back."
3. "Face the
Promise"
Seger: "It's about kids
from small towns looking at the big American dream: 'I'm
gonna go out and face the promise of the promised land. I
want to get to the big city and get off this farm.' ... A
pretty swampy, rock-blues song. I really like
it."
Cole: "One of the songs
that's been around for the duration of this process.
Another barnburner."
4. "No Matter Who You
Are"
Seger: "There was a
song by Joni Mitchell called 'Dog Eat Dog' that inspired
'No Matter Who You Are.' She's singing about an artist
who comes out and has this special, unique thing, as all
artists do. And then after maybe one or two hits, the
record company says, 'Now keep writing 'em like that.'
That's it in a nutshell: You have to guard your special,
pure thing and cherish it."
5. "Are You"
Seger: " 'Are You' is
about rampant commercialism, and how we're inundated with
it."
Cole: "This has some of
the best drum work. I love what Steve Brewster brought to
it. It was a tough song for him to wrap his head around.
Bob had this idea for a particular beat. He had demo'd it
at home with a drum machine. You can do anything you want
with a drum machine, but when it comes time for a real
person to do it, it can be really difficult. But he
nailed it.
"Obviously you see a
lot of Nashville musicians on this record. Bob likes
working in Nashville. You call these cats, and they're
just thrilled to come in and play on a Bob Seger
record."
6.
"Simplicity"
Seger: "Keep things
simple. Again, it's advice to my kids: The fundamentals
will get you through. Be a good listener if you wanna be
a good friend. Little things like that."
Cole: "Normally people
record a few instruments at a time, but Bob said, 'No, I
want to do this as a full band like the old Phil Spector
records.' A full horn section, keyboards, guitars,
percussion, drums, and Bob singing live -- we had the
whole thing going at once."
7. "No More"
Seger: " 'No More' is
about the Iraq war. I don't know if we stay there any
longer that it's going to get any better. The troops have
done a fantastic job. ... But what's going to change in
the next five years if we come home right
now?"
8. "Real Mean Bottle"
(with Kid Rock)
Cole: "He's got the
mutual admiration society with Kid Rock -- they're
buddies, they share a manager, their kids play together.
When he said to Kid, 'Hey, do you want to do this Vince
Gill song?' Kid dropped everything and said,
'When?!'
"He came in and said,
'Man, we've got to rock this thing.' He started singing
it at double speed with all this attitude. Bob's eyes lit
up. It really came together on the spot."
9. "Won't
Stop"
Seger: " 'Won't Stop'
is about addiction. And I think it goes nice with 'Real
Mean Bottle,' actually. We were kind of making fun of
drinking, and all that, but then I wanted a serious song
about addiction -- like, 'I don't condone this.'
"
Cole: "He said, 'You
know, I think this should be really sparse, just guitar
and voice.' ... I said, 'We should bring in this guy Eric
Darken to do percussion -- he might have an idea for a
tambourine or shaker part, something simple.' He's down
in Nashville, we're in Detroit. I sent him a file over
the Internet and had him play on it and send it back to
us."
10.
"Between"
Seger: "I think my
favorite song on the record is 'Between.' I just love the
groove. I love the way I sang it, I love the way they
played it, I love the way the girls sang it. And it says
exactly what I wanted to say."
11. "The Answer's in
the Question" (with Patty Loveless)
Seger: "I thought, what
a cool idea for a song: The answer is in the question.
'Will you be home late again?' OK, if you ask somebody
that, there's something wrong."
Cole: "When he wrote
that song, he said, 'You know, I can hear this as a duet.
It would be cool to have the male and female perspective
on the lyric.' He said his first choice would be to sing
with Patty Loveless, because he's such a fan of hers. He
wasn't sure she'd want to do it."
Seger: "I called her up
and said, 'Now, trust me -- it's not a hit.' "
Cole: "She just gushed
and responded, 'I'm you're biggest fan -- what are you
talking about?!' "
12. "The Long
Goodbye"
Cole: "When I heard it,
I really was attracted to the melody and the simplicity
of the arrangement, and I didn't really understand what
the lyric was all about. I had a sense of it, but didn't
really get it. And Bob explained it to me."
Seger: "It's about
Alzheimer's disease. I dealt with that with my aunt,
after my mother died. And now, my wife is dealing with it
with her father. So it became fresh again.
"I was just
folk-picking one day on a guitar, doing all these strange
chords. That song has more chords in it than any other
song on the record. There's like four chords for three
words at times. So it's a very complicated chord
structure, and I just really loved it. So I thought,
'What am I going to sing to this?' And I came up with
'The Long Goodbye.' "
 - Seger
listening to Face the
Promise.
September 13,
2006
From the Vault to the
CD -- Comparing Tracks
I was lucky enough to hear
six of the CD tracks (counting "Red Eye to Memphis') in the
Vault over the years. Here are the original write-ups,
reprinted from those trips. How close did I come to
describing them right?
Wreck This
Heart
This track sounds exactly
the same as the version E2 and I heard in the Vault. Here's
how I described it back then:
Judging only by
the lyrics, you might think "Wreck This Heart" was a
sorrowful kind of song. There are dark clouds, a cold
wind and maybe a little self-doubt. But the music and the
vocals are as boisterous and upbeat as anything Seger's
done in recent memory. Dark clouds or not, "Wreck This
Heart" is an arena shaker. Or as E2 put it, "Mr. Jagger,
call your office: We've found the long-lost Sticky
Fingers outtake!"
Indeed, the song breaks
out of the gate with a big guitar fanfare worthy of the
Stones (though I got more of a "Money for Nothing," vibe
from it, which in turn came from the Stones, I suppose).
Anyway, you get the picture. Big, chopping git-box chords
and a bass-drum/snare-drum beat that orders everyone to
their feet. I feel pretty sure "Wreck This Heart" will be
on Seger's next CD. When I look at the credits, I'll be
checking to see if Joe Walsh is listed -- or someone
carrying on the Walsh sound.
As the big intro
builds, Seger lets out an energetic "Hut! Hut!" and then
the vocals come in -- fast, loud and confident. On paper
(or on your monitor) the lyrics don't really convey the
energy. Think "Lock and Load" but uptempo, with a lot
more voltage and a lot more fun.
- I feel a cold wind
blowing all over me
- I see the dark
clouds starting to form
- The trees are bare,
the grass is brown
- Another early
winter Michigan storm
- Everything I do is
just a little wrong
- Every day for me is
the same
- Everyone I know is
getting in my face
- And I've only got
myself to blame
- I think I'm gonna
- Wreck this
heart
- Wreck this
heart
- Wreck this
heart
- After a while
The second verse veers
toward country music territory. Seger sings of problems
with his boss, his wife, of having bills to pay, of
missing his dog. Hey, just throw in a truck that doesn't
start and you've got a song that Tim McGraw would kill
for.
The bridge gives us the
first "wishing well" reference of this vault visit, as
the guitar takes off, screaming:
- There's time to
work, time to live
- There's only so
much time around
- And if you lean too
far over the wishing well
- You might fall in
and drown
There's also a classic
Seger lyric in the last verse: "Order me a case of your
southern soul and let me out tonight. I need a good long
ride on your rodeo and everything will be
alright."
Turn it up. "Wreck This
Heart" will rock your world.
One of the few pictures
ever taken in The Vault
July 27, 2005
Wait For
Me
The released version is
essentially the same as the Vault version. I don't remember
the synthesized strings, but they might have been
there.
"Wait For Me" is
in a familiar genre: it's a mid-tempo Seger medium ala
"Still The Same," "Understanding," "The Real Love," "By
The River," etc., etc.
I can imagine someone
thinking that we've got enough Seger mediums as it is.
But "Wait For Me" is so dead-center perfect that Ears 2
and I instantly fell under its sway. This has got to be
the next single. FM radio has ignored Seger's last two
albums. I don't see how they can ignore "Wait For Me."
It's infectious, earnest, upbeat, real, full of
yearning…all those things that make a great Seger
song.
Musically, it's most
closely related to "Against the Wind." There are chord
changes, particularly as the song enters the bridge, that
bring to mind ATW. But you have to listen for the
similarity -- these are clearly two distinct songs.
The lyrics give us a
travelin' man who has to answer the call of the wild, but
who also believes in love.
- I will answer the
wind
- I will leave with
the tide
- I'll be out on the
road
- Every chance I can
ride.
-
- No matter how
far,
- No matter how
free
- I'll be along, if
you'll wait for me.
The bridge describes a
free-spirited rebellion against routine. In "Travelin'
Man," women came and women went, "every one trying to
cage me." Here, Seger's heart is pledged to one
woman…but he's not staying home, even if she doesn't
understand why, no matter who tries to talk him out of
it.
- And I'll fight for
the right to go over that hill
- If it only means
something to me.
- I will not be
persuaded, I won't be still
- I'll find a way to
be free-eee.
The line "I'll fight
for the right" might remind you of "moving eight miles a
minute." And you can hear the Eagles sound that informed
much of ATW. But neither influence detracts or distracts.
The last verse cements
the pledge: "Straight to your side, I guarantee…if
you'll wait for me," followed by repeated choruses of
"Wait for me."
This isn't new ground,
but it's rock solid with a great melody and great vocals.
What more could you want? "Wait For Me" is pure Seger. I
can't wait to hear it again.
June 27,
2005
Face The
Promise
The sound of the released
version is basically the same as what I heard in the Vault
-- though the Vault track had an extra verse, just before
the bridge:
- I've seen too many
lakes
- Too many
trees
- I'm tired of these
towns
- I'm down on my
knees
- So long,
Minnesota,
- So long,
Winterland.
- I need to face the
promise
- Of the promised
land.
-
- Here's the original
Vault write-up:
- I
listened to "Face the Promise" last because I
suspected it might be special: In interviews last
year, Seger said the new CD might be titled Face the
Promise. Album titles can change, but at least at one
point Seger thought of "Face the Promise" as important
enough to be the title track. What would it be
like?
The
answer is: Masterful. Driving. Modern.
The
song establishes itself instantly. "I've been down in
the delta," Seger sings, and a snaky, powerful lead
guitar immediately answers the line, replicating the
rhythm of the words. Seger and the guitar trade lines
like this throughout the song.
For
every new or unreleased track I heard, I tried to
think of an existing Seger song that was similar.
"Face the Promise" is the only one that seems to have
no obvious antecedent. The back-up singers sound just
as they do on "Rite of Passage," except they are used
more sparingly and to better effect, and Seger's voice
is prominent in the mix. What brought me to my feet,
though, is how new this sounds. This is not Seger
doing another version of something we've already
heard. This is Seger taking us someplace new, and with
authority.
You
hear it in the music and you hear it in the vocals. If
you could measure commitment on a scale of one to ten
-- where one is Phoning It In and ten is Straight from
the Gut -- this track would be up in the high teens.
In film, you hear people talk about an actor
completely inhabiting a character. Seger completely
inhabits this song. The guitar-driven music cooks and
Seger bites into every line, but it's not a shouter --
Seger mixes restraint and urgency beautifully. The
vocal quality is similar to Seger's voice in 16 Shells
from a 30-6. The bottom line is that he feels it, and
he makes you feel it.
Maybe
that's because the song seems built around an urgent
seeking. He sings about needing a world of
changes:
- I've
been down in the delta
- Workin'
these fields
- Breakin'
my back
- I
need a better deal.
- So
long Mississippi
- So
long Alabam'
- I
need to face the promise
- Of
the promised land...
-
- I
need a world of changes
- I
need a brand new space
- I
need an El Dorado
- There's
gotta be some place.
-
- There's
a line inside
- I
think I've crossed
- You
better watch out now
- I'm
gonna be my own boss.
- So
long North Dakota
- You
must understand
- I
need to face the promise
- Of
the promised land.
- In the
bridge, when Seger sings that he needs an El Dorado, the
reference is not to the car, but to the legendary city
sought by Spanish explorers. Each of the five verses ends
with Seger proclaiming good-bye to some real world place
(from North Dakota to Olean, a city in southwest New
York) and proclaiming the need to "face the promise of
the promised land."
I think
it's a great song. Over the past few months, various
people who I know as practically lifelong Seger fans have
written me asking, essentially, what's the point? Why
continue hoping for a new Seger CD that never seems to
come? In short, why should we keep caring?
This
song is the answer. It's that good.
July
29, 2002
Are You
Before I could write up my
take on "Are You," Seger's management called and asked me to
stop writing so much about the new songs. "It spoils the
surprise for Bob" to have the songs so fully described, is
how they put it. So I posted only the following summary.
(Though as an inside joke for Seger's management, I slipped
the line "most of what we're told is misdirection" into one
of my posts about the album being delayed.)
Clanging guitars,
big drums and a sharp-edged beat in another song from
2004. Seger delivers strong, confident vocals in a song
about materialism and values.
October 18,
2005
The released track is
different -- and improved -- from the Vault version. The
tasty back-up vocals weren't there, or at least I don't
remember them. The lyrics and the basic structure haven't
changed. I do remember EarsTwo commenting that "Are You" was
in the same sort of sonic world as "These Shoes" by the
Eagles.
Won't
Stop
The complexities of Vault
entry meant I didn't hear any tracks this year. EarsTwo --
upgraded to Ears One -- heard this one. He called it a slow
strummer and had some issues with the guitar. I haven't
checked in with him yet to find out if the CD version is
what he heard.
Answer's
in the Question
The Vault version is just
Seger -- no Patty Loveless -- and the sound is stripped down
to guitar and drums -- so it sounds lonelier and, to me,
more peronsal. The four lines beginning with "Whan all the
trees are bending" are not on the released version. And the
line "Faith is in decline" was changed to "Faith is hard to
find," for the CD.
- "Answer's in the
Question" is a fine song to bring this series to a close,
since it's the kind of song -- like "Somewhere Tonight"
-- that could be used to close an album. It's a song
about endings -- about the feelings and questions that
circle over us, late at night, when things are ending.
It's not purely a sad song -- but there's kind of a muted
sorrow to it, mixed with an understanding that this is
how life is. Will you hide, the lyrics ask, or face your
fears:
-
- The answer's in the
question
- Will you be home
late again?
- Will you find the
courage
- When the truth
comes closing in?
- When all the trees
are bending
- and the storm is
really here
- Will you just stay
hidden?
- Will you face your
fear?
-
- When trust is
almost broken
- Faith is in
decline,
- The answer's in the
question
- Will you leave this
all behind?
-
- The heart's a
lonely hunter
- It never quite
feels safe
- The devil's in the
details
- The thrill is in
the chase.
-
- You rise and fall
like water
- You try to stay the
same.
- The only thing
that's certain
- Is that everything
will change.
- How will I be
remembered?
- Will my critics be
unkind?
- The answer's in the
question,
- Will you leave this
all behind?
The lyrics don't
tell us what it is that's ending, or why. In that sense,
the song is mostly interior monologue. It's sung quietly
and resolutely over a simple guitar arrangement, with
brushes on drums. The tempo and the three-quarter-time
beat is similar to "West of the Moon," but "Answer" is
simpler and more serious.
My sense is that the
song is about that moment when you start asking yourself
questions that you haven't wanted to ask. And the simple
fact that you're finally asking them tells you that the
relationship is ending.
The song closes with a
couplet that could be taken two ways. "How will I be
remembered," Seger sings, "Will my critics be unkind?"
For the first several listenings, I took that literally,
as if Seger were asking how music critics would view his
career. Then it struck me that when you leave a
relationship, you leave a whole set of people -- friends,
relatives -- and I remembered Seger's comment about the
Tom Wait's line, "I don't care if they miss me / I never
remember their names," in "Blind Love." (Seger said: "I
think he's talking about, maybe her relatives...he's
broken up with her and maybe he didn't like her relatives
so much....") So I decided the "critics" are the
ex-lover's friends and relatives, offering their opinions
on why things went wrong.
There's an honest
simplicity to "Answer's in the Question." The track I
heard was short, about three minutes, with no back-up
singers, no big swell of music -- just Seger, his voice
slightly haunted and very powerful. It's the kind of
song, I think, that would have to be on the next
album.
Though, as Seger sings,
"the only thing that's certain / is that everything will
change."
August 15,
2002
-
The Patty Loveless duet is
a different kind of pleasure, I suppose -- but for me the
Nashville polish subdues the emotion. The Vault track
sounded a lot more like "Won't Stop" in terms of sonics. I
felt like you could reach right out and touch Seger, sitting
there alone in the night. For me, that intimacy made the
song more powerful.
Red Eye to
Memphis
I won't be able to hear
the "bonus tack" version until midnight tonight, so I can't
compare the two yet. Here's the original Vault
entry:
This new track
begins with a great, slippery bass line. Listen to the
bass at the front end of "Tryin' to Live My Life Without
You," speed it up and add more funk -- that's basically
how this uptempo Memphis song begins. This track is all
about groove, and Seger hits it well. "Baby's on the red
eye to Memphis," he sings, "Bringing me something tonight
/ Bringing it home to daddy / Tonight we won't fuss or
fight."
This is a short track,
less than three minutes, but it's definitely tastier than
anything on It's A Mystery. I could imagine Bonnie Raitt
or Curtis Salgado or any number of people attempting a
song like this and doing a good job. But Seger's voice is
really what makes this track cook. It's the kind of
groove tailor-made to show off his great phrasing.
Sometimes Seger will grab a word in the middle of a line
and turn it into something close to a howl (cf., "When
you WERE a young girl," from "River Deep, Mountain High")
and he does the same here:
- "This ain't no
hat, no new pair of shoes
- She's packing
something we SHORE can use."
In addition to being
musically different from anything on Mystery, the subject
matter is also different: "Memphis" percolates with a
kind of Fire-Down-Below sensuality, or even lust, that
was missing from Mystery. "We're gonna howl at the moon /
create some history soon."
The track I heard had
one back-up singer and someone on tambourine. The last
verse is preceded by a great Seger howl. "I'll be down at
the terminal in Memphis," the song concludes, "Watching
every single gate..." (The lyrics were obviously written
before 9/11 -- they don't allow you past the checkpoint
these days.) All in all, it's a great, upbeat, sexy song,
with all-out Seger vocals. A must for the next
CD.
August 9,
2002
Other
Reviews
The
Detroit Free Press
- New Seger album
worth the wait
- BY Brian
McCollum
- September 10,
2006
It's the album Bob
Seger fans hoped he'd give them.
It's certainly the
album Bob Seger wanted to make: Eleven years in the
works, "Face the Promise" is assuredly no throwaway
effort, its dozen tracks the result of scrupulous pruning
from a body of songs three times as big.
It is the sound of
Seger aiming to sink his teeth again into rock 'n' roll,
and successfully tearing off a healthy piece. The guitars
are turned up. There's swing in the grooves. Seger lets
loose and lets his voice get dirty.
The new album isn't
"Beautiful Loser," "Night Moves," "Stranger in Town" or
even "Against the Wind," the 1980 record that began
Seger's move into smoother adult rock. Those are the peak
moments of an artist on a roll, empowered by his creative
highs and validated by his popular success. If nothing
else, "Face the Promise" performs a vital service by
ensuring that his discography doesn't end with 1995's
"It's a Mystery," a tepid effort and the weakest overall
collection of his career.
Album opener "Wreck
This Heart" promptly sets the tone: Built atop a winding,
growling guitar line, it's as assertive musically as it
is lyrically ("Am I talkin' too fast / Am I hard to
hear?"), and signals Seger's eagerness to keep the
wattage high. But it's also something of an anomaly.
Where "Face the Promise" is largely built on studied
contemplations of life today and tomorrow, "Wreck This
Heart" finds Seger revisiting youthful rock
abandon.
That casual looseness
makes just one other notable appearance, on his
much-discussed duet with Kid Rock on Vince Gill's "Real
Mean Bottle," a chugging roadhouse stomper and drinking
ode that pairs the two Oakland County neighbors on record
for the first time.
Although the lyrics
become more earnest elsewhere, the record largely
maintains that tough, gnarled musical edge. Three of the
album's best songs -- "Between," "Simplicity" and "Won't
Stop" -- are its most raw and organic. The texture
lightens up only for a lovely pair of closing songs: "The
Answer's in the Question," featuring lead and harmony
vocals from country crooner Patty Loveless, and "The Long
Goodbye," a touching and stirring portrait of Alzheimer's
disease.
A group of seasoned
Nashville players provides the sonic bedrock, and
although the performances occasionally come close to
taking on too much polish for their own good, Seger keeps
enough raggedness intact to let the stuff qualify, by any
measure, as rock 'n' roll.
Sometimes it's worth
the wait.
The
Detroit News
- Seger's latest
is full of 'Promise'
- Susan Whitall / The
Detroit News
- September 9,
2006
It's clear from the
opening kick of the drums and the first "hyut!" out of
Bob Seger on the song "Wreck this Heart" that "Face the
Promise" isn't just a little side project he's been
working on in between Pistons games.
This is the real thing,
the soulful, hard-rocking stuff that made Seger's name
shorthand for "Detroit rock," and sold out all those '70s
gigs at Cobo Hall.
But it's country, too;
several songs, including his duet with Patty Loveless,
"The Answer's in the Question," will warm the hearts of
country radio programmers.
The first song, "Wreck
This Heart," is a throwback in the best sense; a raucous
rocker expressing frustration and yearning for
escape.
Similarly, on "Face the
Promise" Seger is "all small-towned out," howling for
freedom, straining at the bit for new horizons and
longing for a blacktop road and a wheel in his hands. In
his best music, Seger has always channeled the Rustbelt
pain and dashed hopes of his fans, giving their feelings
words and music.
He was doing this
infused with a very Michigan blend of country, soul and
rock years before a poverty of imagination caused writers
to lump him in with John Mellencamp and Bruce
Springsteen.
On the album, Seger is
using fewer metaphors in his lyrics, which gives his
music the old punch, and a more subtle poetry.
From the song
"Simplicity" comes this ultimate Detroit couplet:
"Complex theories have their place/I like throwdowns in
your face." He wrote the song for the Pistons, but it's
also about the former autoworker's own lunchbucket work
style, about how performing "the fundamentals" wins the
day.
In "No Matter Who You
Are," after making the point that someone is always going
to want something else from you, he adds the concise,
beautiful line: "This is an ancient test; it's a shiny
lie."
"Are You" expresses
dismay at consumerism, with Seger's impassioned vocal
answered, Southern-soul style, by the heartfelt wails of
Shaun Murphy.
More recent fans might
think the anti-Iraq song "No More" is out of character
for the amiable Seger, but this is the guy who wrote and
recorded the blistering antiwar song "2 + 2," a hot
little piece of wax on the Hideout label.
In that earlier song,
on top of a fuzz-guitar riff, Seger sings: "Yes it's true
I am a young man, but I'm old enough to kill/I don't
wanna kill nobody but I must if you so will "
In "No More," Seger
looks back with a more seasoned regret and pain at
Vietnam, "forty years ago, when I was young," and
complains that he "doesn't want this" anymore.
Most memorably, he
swaps verses on "Real Mean Bottle" with Kid Rock, his
husky baritone contrasting pleasingly with Rock's wailing
tenor.
Get ready to hear this
one on the radio for the next eon or two.
The
Boston Globe
- Seger keeps the
faith with 'Promise'
- By Sarah Rodman,
Globe Staff
- September 12,
2006
Bob Seger may drive a
snazzy foreign sports car these days, but the music he
makes still possesses the durability of those
American-made trucks he helped sell. At 61, he's still
like a rock.
On ``Face the Promise,"
his first album in 11 years, the plainspoken Detroit
legend with the pleasantly road-abused voice continues to
earn his post-Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction
stripes with a set of songs that sound familiar in the
best sense of the word.
Seger headed to
Nashville and took an ``if it ain't broke" approach to
his project, self-producing a compact, muscular, and
richly melodic set of bar-band rave-ups, stately ballads
with soaring female choruses, and sturdy midtempo rock
songs. Each track comes from the same family as
classic-rock staples ``Night Moves" or ``Against the Wind
," but Seger wisely avoids slavishly cloning the
originals.
The revitalized tone is
set immediately by the barn-burning opener ``Wreck This
Heart," which is all Saturday night attitude and ``more
cowbell!" exuberance.
The 11 tracks that
follow are equally sound and range from the
whiskey-soaked duet of Vince Gill's Merle Haggard tribute
``Real Mean Bottle," with acolyte Kid Rock, to the
ruminative acoustic closer ``The Long
Goodbye."
``Goodbye" -- which
explores the fog that can arise between lovers, friends,
even citizens and their government -- is among several
songs that shed light on what's been on Seger's mind
during his hiatus. The ``American Storm" he saw brewing
in the distance 20 years ago has made landfall, and the
father of two young children is wondering if it's too
late to take cover.
Over a bodacious
backbeat, ``Between" worries about global warming, taking
to task those aforementioned trucks with lyrics about big
engines, shirked responsibilities, and melting glaciers .
The soulful ``Are You" -- which sounds like Don Henley at
his most indignant fronting the Stones -- targets
consumerism. ``No More" is an almost Orbison-ian,
string-adorned lament about wars past and present that
features a creamy, tear-stained vocal.
Of course, as Seger
sings on ``Simplicity," the blue-collar rocker has long
focused on ``the basic stuff." So ``Promise" also
includes a beautiful waltz-time duet with Patty Loveless
that deals with faith, fidelity, and legacy, and the
title track -- which oddly name-checks Massachusetts and
Framingham -- takes to the open road.
While in some ways
Seger has turned these pages before, it's a pleasant
surprise that he's found new meanings upon
re-examination.
The
Flint Journal
By Doug
Pullen
It's been 30 years
since "Live Bullet" put the Michigan Rock and Roll Hall
of Famer on the map, 20 years since his heyday, 11 years
since his last release of all-new material. So "Face the
Promise," out this week, had better be good, right? Rest
assured, Seger fans, "Face the Promise" lives up to the
promise.
With nary a Silver
Bullet member in sight, Seger fulfills "Promise" with his
classic blue-collar rock 'n' roll, splashes of country,
some well-placed string arrangements, a couple of choice
duets (one with Kid Rock) and the kind of certainty in
the lyrics that only comes with age, wisdom and a
high-level of comfort with his place in life. It's a good
place to be, but not without its perils.
"Promise" completes a
trilogy that began with 1991's "The Fire Inside," which
chronicled Seger's life with new wife Nita and a desire
to put his old life behind him, and 1995's "It's a
Mystery," which cast a father's weary eye on the world.
The 12 songs on "Promise" tackle everything from the war
in Iraq (the string-laden "No More") and the environment
("Between") to the kind of love that withstands life's
tests (the lovely ballad and first single, "Wait for
Me").
Opener "Wreck This
Heart" is classic Seger, with snarling guitars, chick
singers and that familiar smoky wail, using the onset of
"another early Michigan winter storm" to spin a tale of
reinvention, a theme echoed in the hard-driving title
song, a blue-collar anthem about finding "a brand new
space."
Occasional overreliance
on monotonous grooves bogs down the proceedings at times
but at 61, Bob Seger has found a sense of urgency that
suits him well.
MonstersandCritics.com
- Patrick
Luce
- September 15,
2006
With the release of
'Face the Promise,' rock icon Bob Seger is back after an
11 year wait between studio albums, and the rocker is
better than ever. The album is a must have for Seger fans
or anyone who enjoys real rock.
Seger, who recorded
most of the album in Nashville, kicks off 'Face the
Promise' with the guitar-driven track "Wreck This Heart"
that features his signature sound and lyric style. The
song also shows that the singer/songwriter can still rock
with the best of them.
On the album's title
track, "Are You," and "Between," Seger fills the album
with hard guitar power chords and hammering drums that
gives us some of his hardest rock since the early '70s.
His duet with Kid Rock on the cover of Vince Gill's "Real
Mean Bottle" demonstrates that Seger can still hang with
the young rockers, and leave them in his dust.
The album also features
plenty of the singer's signature sound and lyrics that
have made him a huge influence in rock, and one of
music's greatest artists. "Wait For Me" (the album's lead
single), "No Matter Who You Are" and "No More" are
classic Seger, and are enough to hook you on the entire
CD.
Seger also slows things
down from time to time with the tracks "Won't Stop," "The
Answers in the Question" (which features a duet with
Patty Loveless) and "The Long Goodbye." This change gives
the entire album a nice overall pacing.
As a longtime fan of
Bob Seger, I have been looking forward to this album
since I heard it was going to be released. By the end of
the first song, I was hooked, and Seger makes sure every
track on the album is a winner.
This is simply a great
CD for fans of Seger or guitar rock. 'Face the Promise'
has something to offer everyone. Fans of Seger's harder
rock songs will love tracks like "Wreck This Heart" and
"Are You," but the singer also makes sure to include
enough of his softer side to please those fans that
prefer his ballads. The album is simply classic Bob
Seger, and it won't disappoint.
The
Appalachian News-Express
- 'Promise' of
Seger CD worth the wait
- By Rick
Bentley
- September 16,
2006
"I don't want to put
some dog meat out there if I'm in the Hall of Fame --
know what I mean?" Bob Seger, quoted by UPI. Mission,
most definitely, accomplished.
Bob Seger's first CD of
new music in 11 years is called "Face the Promise," and
it hit record stores on Tuesday. A delay that long for
someone of his age is certainly dangerous, but it turned
out to be a calculated decision that should simply
improve his already remarkable image.
Seger, who grew up on
the streets of Ann Arbor, Mich. (the town he so
eloquently toasted some 30 years ago in his classic
Mainstreet), first gained national attention in 1969 when
his debut album "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" reached as high
as No. 68 on the Billboard charts while the single of the
same name peaked at No. 17.
For years, he was known
largely for his live shows in the Midwest, which he
traveled through in a station wagon (kids, ask your
parents about this precursor to the minivan). That all
changed in early 1976 when Seger, unable to finish the
title track for his next studio album, grudgingly agreed
to the release of a live album recorded in Detroit's Cobo
Hall in late 1975.
This two-album
collection, "Live Bullet," turned out to be the best move
of his career. And when he finally finished the song in
question, the follow-up album, "Night Moves," became the
album of his life and a rock n' roll staple.
Now, some 30 years
later, Seger is back with a CD that easily holds up with
the trilogy that began with "Night Moves," "Stranger in
Town" and "Against the Wind," that should put him back on
the national map.
And, unlike much of
Seger's more recent efforts, this one delivers on his
promise to rock. Opening track "Wreck this Heart"
blisters. Seger's signature "Hey Hey" only seconds into
the CD speaks volumes. Listen up, people, he seems to
say. Because I'm back, as good as ever.
The first single, "Wait
for Me," an appropriately-titled song for those of us who
have, is an acoustic mid-tempo piece that easily stands
up to his most famous ones, songs like "Against the
Wind," "Fire Lake" and "Shame on the Moon." Written as an
ode to his young children, Seger's voice carries that
high, lonesome sound often associated with Bluegrass
singers but that has served him well on the road to the
Hall of Fame.
The title track
follows, and once again, is pure rock n roll.
But the highlight of
this CD easily comes at track eight, where Seger and
fellow Detroit native Kid Rock absolutely explode on
Vince Gill's "Real Mean Bottle." The song, a tribute to
Merle Haggard, may be hardly recognizable to Gill fans,
but is all sizzle. Rock, born Bob Ritchie, is given a
production credit after Seger said he took over the
session.
"Bob turned the thing
up 70 beats a minute," Seger told the "Detroit News." "He
did the handclaps, the breakdowns, he changed the melody
on the bridge and the choruses. He did all of that right
in front of my eyes. That's why I gave him a production
credit."
In your haste to find
"Bottle," don't miss the songs it's sandwiched between.
"No More" and "Won't Stop" are solid efforts that could
have easily found a home on any of Seger's classic
albums. The former weighs in on the war in Iraq, the
latter is a slow-burner that has that legendary Seger
vocal right at the forefront, and both would be welcome
additions to the much-rumored tour.
The CD is fleshed out
by such tunes as "Between," which is reminiscent of
"Tomorrow" from his "Greatest Hits 2" collection; "The
Answer's in the Question," a duet with Pike County native
Patty Loveless; and "No Matter Who You Are," another
mid-tempo that falls very comfortably from these
61-year-old lips.
Read these words
carefully: I rarely buy CDs in stores these days, and
even less frequently pay full price. But "Face the
Promise" is worth the trip to your local CD
supplier.
This CD rocks. It has
the classic sound of Seger in his late-70's heyday,
exactly the kind of music you and I say we can't find
anymore.
Buy "Face the Promise."
It'll have you jamming all the way home.
Rick Bentley is sports
information director at Pikeville College.
About.com
- I Never Give
Five Stars
- by Dave
White
We have a five-star
rating system here at About.com. As a matter of
principle, 4.5 is the highest rating I ever give an
album. Until now.
Gut Level
Music
You know how it is. One
of your favorite classic rock bands or artists releases
an album of new music and you rush to give it a listen,
hoping it evokes the same reactions you experienced 30 or
so years ago when you first heard them. As often as not,
you're disappointed to find that the "something" that
originally made you a devoted fan just doesn't seem to be
there anymore, at least not consistently.
A handful of artists
can, for me, still deliver with new material today what
they did back in the day: Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil
Young. And with his new release, Bob Seger maintains a
favored spot on that list.
With 2006's Face the
Promise, Seger is still delivering the same addictive
brand of roots rock he began cranking out with 1969's
Ramblin' Gamblin' Man. The themes are timeless; the voice
is still clear and powerful; the appeal is visceral, gut
level.
The 11 Year
Wait
As always, it is
music with a simple but effective message, set to a
medium-hard rock beat. Later practitioners like Bruce
Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp owe much to
Seger's everyman style and work ethic. Waiting 11 years
between albums might be risky for some artists, but Seger
has had no problem picking up where he left off with
1995's It's a Mystery.
"The Answer's In the
Question" with Patty Loveless is one of the most
well-chosen duet pairings I've heard in a very long time.
As players of both instruments will tell you, there's a
big difference between a violin and a fiddle, just as
there is a big difference between the musical styles of
Seger and Loveless. The two instruments and the two
voices are blended here with surprising results. The
track stands out on an album full of
standouts.
There's plenty of
classic Seger rock throughout, especially the lead track,
"Wreck This Heart," "Are You" and the title song, "Face
the Promise." And there's plenty of the lyrics that are
Seger's trademark: simple, direct, easily related to by
common everyday folks like us.
Face the Promise is a
stomp-your-feet, make-you-think, give-you-some-goosebumps
album that has what may be some of the best work Seger
has ever done. If you're already a Bob Seger fan, you'll
listen to it often. If you aren't already a Bob Seger
fan, this album will make you one.
East
Valley Tribune (Arizona)
- Aural Fixations
- Country outlets speed return of rocker Bob
Seger
- By Chris Hansen
Orf
- September 17,
2006
If it's proved anything
in its nearly 60 years as a genre, it's that rock 'n'
roll is a young man's game. The court of popular opinion
in rock is swift and often unjust, casting aside classic
rockers in favor of quick fads and cool haircuts worn by
younger kids.
Consider this
blueprint: Elvis' popularity was usurped by the mop-top
Beatles, who were, at least when they landed on these
shores in '64, a fad -- and the vicious circle has
repeated itself in the decades since.
Detroit rocker Bob
Seger, for instance, was huge in the '70s and '80s, but
by the '90s, after hair metal had killed off most of the
arena rockers of Seger's era and after grunge had killed
off the hair metal bands, Seger's last disc, 1995's "It's
a Mystery," debuted at No. 27 on the album charts and
faded quickly.
It might not have been
fair, as the album was generally solid, but in the MTV
era, a graying dude in his mid-50s wasn't going to
exactly send a post-Gen X crowd raised on hip-hop and
Kurt Cobain running to the record store.
And mainstream rock
radio was no help either, as Seger's two singles from
"It's a Mystery," "Lock and Load" and "Hands in the Air,"
didn't even crack the Top 20, and the singer, perhaps
seeing the writing on the wall, retired to raise his kids
in Michigan.
In the meantime,
though, Seger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame by fellow Detroiter Kid Rock, who has consistently
sung Seger's praises as an influence on his non-hip-hop
rock and country material, and older fans of Seger,
perhaps remembering the singer's classic work and
good-time concerts, began clamoring for his
return.
With his first disc of
new material in more than a decade, "Face the Promise,"
released Sept. 12, Seger has heeded the call.
And he's getting help
from an unlikely source: Country Music
Television.
Perhaps Seger realized
that his classic acoustic and pianobased ballads such as
"Against the Wind," "Fire Lake" and "Night Moves," if
recorded today, would be a perfect fit on country radio
and CMT's video programming since both lean more toward
'80s rock than ever, and figured it would be a good
market for new material. CMT is already playing the first
single from the disc, the breezy, melodic "Wait for Me,"
and Seger looks like a distinguished old roots musician
in the vein of a late-career Waylon Jennings.
Seger even recorded the
new album in Nashville, Tenn., the country music
capital.
Of course, Seger is a
born rock 'n' roller and "Face the Promise" contains
plenty of tunes for old fans of his upbeat songs such as
"Rock & Roll Never Forgets," "Strut" and "Betty Lou's
Gettin' Out Tonight." He leads off the disc with the
power-chord fiesta, "Wreck My Heart," and revs things up
with the gritty title cut and the bluesy "Are
You."
Still, it's the
acoustic tunes here -- "Wait for Me," "No Matter Who You
Are" and "No More" -- that recall Seger's best work. All
of them could be country singles.
The disc's best cut,
"Won't Stop," contains Seger's take on the shifting tides
of rock 'n' roll popularity and his place in it with the
words "You can study the ancients, you can learn every
fact/you can follow the cycles that'll even come back/how
everything changes, it's been ever thus/one day you're a
comet, the next day you're dust/but you won't stop
there."
Seger didn't stop
there, back in 1995, and it's good to hear his classic
bellow of a voice again, even if it's now singing
contemporary country music, er, yeah, rock
music.
Arena rock is alive and
well
With Bob Seger making a
comeback in contemporary music, here is a look at some
other '70s and '80s arena rockers that are primed for a
comeback with nostalgic baby boomers. Poison, Def Leppard
and Journey recently played to capacity crowds at Cricket
Pavilion, so why not these guys? Come on, dude, it'
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