
Athens, Ohio jangle pop/indie pop band The Laughing Chimes have released their new single “A Promise To Keep“.
The song, b/w The Ocean Blue’s classic “Ballerina Out of Control” is out now. Get it here.
Formed by teenage brothers Evan and Quinn Seurkamp, the project draws inspiration from American and British jangle pop from the 80s ad 90s; establishing songs that blend old sounds with new melodies.
“A Promise To Keep,” expands on the band’s now familiar jangle-pop sound with blooms and echoes of Southern Gothic rock (think Fables-era REM or the second Pylon album) as well as the ambitious grandeur of late 70s UK post-punk forebears.
The song blends lyricist Evan Seurkamp’s vision of countless abandoned towns of Appalachia with cavernous vocal poeticism, moth-wing guitars, and the lyrical bass of new band member Avery Bookman into a haunting anthem of decaying houses and moonlit fields.
Their version of “Ballerina Out of Control,” a deep cut from 80s jangle/dream-pop band The Ocean Blue and a formative influence on the Seurkamp brothers, evokes a mood of melancholic ache that makes a perfect complement to the dark drive of “A Promise To Keep.”
Get the track here and take a listen below.
The Laughing Chimes “A Promise To Keep” Lyrics:
Abandon comes on
At every pace
Your looks that cut through
Stomach’s of lace
Kiss the trees of golden disease
You can only watch
The window melts and you breathe of strings
Off The Top
To wonder why the world goes silent
While you sleep
Cocooned in twilight rooms with things
I could never keep
Whatever murmurs first
Will move my mouth
And hands the color
Of one’s lips
The fading painted across your voice
And fingertips
I wish I knew just have those words
You talk about
To wonder why the world goes silent
While you sleep
Cocooned in twilight rooms with shapes of wings
I’ve found too bleak
I’ll never ask what you meant
I’ll let you leave
Scratched across my arm in blue
A promise to keep