User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info

Promises
by
Promises Image
Metascore
86

Universal acclaim - based on 20 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.5

Universal acclaim- based on 57 Ratings

Buy Now
Buy on

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. The Observer (UK)
    Mar 30, 2021
    100
    Recorded over the course of five years, this extraordinary collaboration deserves excellent speakers and a soft couch to catch the swooning listener.
  2. musicOMH.com
    Mar 26, 2021
    100
    It is a key work – a significant milestone – in the grand history of not only Sanders’ career, but the whole free jazz style he helped pioneer. ... This is a truly joyous album, and a purely pleasurable experience.
  3. Paste Magazine
    Mar 26, 2021
    90
    There’s a timeless quality to Promises, an inscrutable sense that the album could hail from 30 years in the past or 30 years into the future.
  4. Beats Per Minute
    Mar 29, 2021
    87
    “Movement 9”, at just two and a half minutes, puts a resplendent cap on proceedings, the LSO’s strings tying things off with forlorn grace and pomp. It’s like an echo of what’s come before, the tremors from the encounter between Sanders and Shepherd resonating out into the infinitude. It leaves us in no doubt that we have just witnessed a meeting of monolithic proportions.
  5. Rolling Stone
    Apr 6, 2021
    80
    Eighty-year-old sax great Sanders pushes his sound to its most heavenly extreme. [Apr 2021, p.73]
    All this publication's reviews
  6. The New York Times
    Mar 25, 2021
    80
    Not until the latter half of the album does the orchestra fully come alive, with a rich and immersive passage on Track 6 — sometimes regal, sometimes bluesy — that almost eclipses the motif, but not quite. And then there is Sanders’s tenor saxophone, a glistening and peaceful sound, deployed mindfully throughout the album. He shows little of the throttling power that used to come bursting so naturally from his horn, but every note seems carefully selected.
  7. Uncut
    Mar 23, 2021
    70
    Promises is an impressive collision of talents, and sublimely lovely in places, but also frustratingly slight. A minor addition to the canon of its two main authors, it earns the double-edged compliment of all half-great albums: it leaves you craving more. [May 2021, p.30]
    All this publication's reviews

See all 20 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 14
  3. Negative: 1 out of 14
  1. SuperDan
    Mar 31, 2021
    10
    I don't think I've ever been as emotionally affected by a first listen of an album as I was by this. It's an extraordinary piece of work. It'sI don't think I've ever been as emotionally affected by a first listen of an album as I was by this. It's an extraordinary piece of work. It's delicate, confident and incredibly moving. It's so wonderful to sit back and listen and imagine what Sanders and Shepherd were trying to get us to think as we listen. I think something different every time, from the wistful to the sad to the uplifted and any album that inspires that in a listener is one to treasure.… Expand
  2. frostyra
    Apr 1, 2021
    10
    Pretty sure I seized listening to this. Movement 6 cemented this as the album of the year for me.

    This is incredible.
  4. Halfwholehalf
    Mar 31, 2021
    10
    Promises is the elegy for 2020. It brings tears of poignancy.

    If the repeating arpeggio represents hope, and the silence after the arpeggio    Promises is the elegy for 2020. It brings tears of poignancy.

    If the repeating arpeggio represents hope, and the silence after the arpeggio is despair, then Pharaoh Sanders is humanity navigating between the two.    … Expand
  5. spongki
    Dec 15, 2021
    8
    Great masters perform a feast of spectacular and overwhelming sounds. With the influences of its period, jazz has developed and continues toGreat masters perform a feast of spectacular and overwhelming sounds. With the influences of its period, jazz has developed and continues to evolve. It became increasingly exploratory, eventually merging with its polar opposite; the third stream was tasked with combining aspects of fine-tuned western classical music with jazz's essentially spontaneous approaches to production. The 20th century brought us the mesmerizing sounds of repetition, as well as limiting frameworks, thanks to the minimalist movement. Pharaoh Sanders' collaboration with Floating Points, a talented electronic musician, appears to be a collision of two worlds glued together by the London Symphonic Orchestra; an ambitious collaboration for the saxophonist's first album in over a decade, and an expansive experiment for Samuel Shepherd.… Expand
  6. AShinyG1ratina
    Jun 21, 2022
    8
    Re-Listen Event Thing Part idek - Holy **** this is a great Jazz album
    Every time I relisten to this thing I pick up on more and more that    Re-Listen Event Thing Part idek - Holy **** this is a great Jazz album
    Every time I relisten to this thing I pick up on more and more that makes it a more rewarding experience each time.
    BEST TRACK: MOVEMENT 6 HOLY **** IT GOES SO HARD
    WORST TRACK: MOVEMENT 9 MAYBE

    RATING CHANGE: +3    … Expand
  7. Ricko
    Mar 4, 2022
    8
    This gets better with every listen to the extent that I'm certain I'll bump this rating up in the future after further time spent with it.This gets better with every listen to the extent that I'm certain I'll bump this rating up in the future after further time spent with it. Ambient, classical, jazz can be used as descriptors but these words can't accurately describe the feel and emotion generated by the sounds created on the album. Hypnotically repetitive and addictive, this is an album that you can soak your ears in without feeling overwhelmed or having to work to hear. Excellent stuff.… Expand
  8. bahamat
    Mar 31, 2021
    0
    While the album does receive critical acclaim, for some people, including me, it just doesn't hit the spot.

See all 14 User Reviews

Related Articles

  1. Best of 2021, Music

    The 40 Best Albums of 2021

    The 40 Best Albums of 2021 Image
    Published: December 23, 2021
    We reveal 2021's best-reviewed albums, ranked by Metascore.
    More »
  2. Best of 2021, Music

    Best of 2021: Music Critic Top Ten Lists

    Best of 2021: Music Critic Top Ten Lists Image
    Published: December 1, 2021
    Over the next month, we'll be collecting year-end top 10 album lists from over 200 music critics, publications, record stores, and other sources. Find all of those individual lists and 2021's consensus rankings inside.
    More »
  3. Best of 2021, Music

    The 20 Best Albums of 2021 So Far

    The 20 Best Albums of 2021 So Far Image
    Published: June 30, 2021
    Here are the best-reviewed albums released during the first half of 2021.
    More »

Awards & Rankings

35
#35 Best Album of 2021
80
#80 Most Discussed Album of 2021

Current Music Releases

Full List »
99 Band on the Run [50th Anniversary Edition] - Paul McCartney & Wings
95 If I don't make it, I love u - Still House Plants
95 The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow - Charles Lloyd
91 COWBOY CARTER - Beyoncé
91 The Carnegie Hall Concert - Alice Coltrane
90 1989 (Taylor's Version) - Taylor Swift
90 Iechyd Da - Bill Ryder-Jones
90 This Could Be Texas - English Teacher
89 I Got Heaven - Mannequin Pussy
89 Black Bayou - Robert Finley
89 Tigers Blood - Waxahatchee
89 All Born Screaming - St. Vincent
88 Only God Was Above Us - Vampire Weekend
88 What Now - Brittany Howard
88 Hey Panda - The High Llamas
88 Orquídeas - Kali Uchis
88 The Past Is Still Alive - Hurray for the Riff Raff
87 Filthy Underneath - Nadine Shah
87 i/o - Peter Gabriel
87 Blue Lips - ScHoolboy Q
All Current Music »