1996 album by The Promise Ring on Jade Tree Records.

This album, despite only listening to it twice, and owning it for just over 3 hours, is very special to me. I'm 16, have a girlfriend for the first time, and just may or may not be in love. The album is filled with sparkling descriptions of places I've never been, but evoke a feeling of nostalgia anyways; people I've never met but could have known for years; and situations that I could have lived a thousand times over. It's not a happy record, but it's not any bullshit doom and gloom crap either. It's real, to me.

"Scenes From France In General." I am the guy this song is about, wishing I was elsewhere, "...to dream of a duel, speaking furious in Latin, the scald scar of water..."

"A Picture Postcard." How many times have I felt unsure about how to act with my girlfriend? This song expresses it for me, wonderfully... "If I put my hands to your stomach, or put my lips to your hand..." Can't you understand?

A full tracklist for those too cheap to go out and buy the album:

  1. Everywhere In Denver
  2. Red Paint
  3. Heart of a Broken Story
  4. Scenes from France
  5. Anne You Will Sing
  6. My Firetower Flame
  7. Between Pacific Coasts
  8. A Picture Postcard
  9. Somebody's Done For
  10. The Sea of Cortez
  11. Run Down The Waterfall
  12. We Don't Like Romance (instrumental)