About

Promise, from 1985, is the ideal second album, firmly establishing the Sade template without retreading the same material of the band’s debut. The album feels like a volume in a series, as does each subsequent addition to Sade’s catalog. Promise is lush and unhurried, reclining somewhere between jazz, Brazilian pop, and soul. Multiple articles and reviews from the time of release leaned on the same descriptor for the singer, the band, and the music: “cool.” It’s mood music, at the purest definition: Stuart Matthewman’s sax, Andrew Hale’s keys, and Paul Spencer Denman’s masterful bass envelope listeners, transport them. The live recordings were a departure from the heavily programmed production of the era, and the sparse elegance that some found—and still find—too loungy is one of the primary factors in Sade’s sound and catalog aging beautifully.

While Promise—and Sade’s music in general—is often categorized as sexy or relaxing, the smooth ease of Adu’s vocals over the mellow instrumentation belies the melancholy in most of the album cuts. “War of the Hearts” frames the end of a relationship as a standoff; two people exhausted from hurting each other, but too stubborn to call the cease-fire that would end it. There’s “Jezebel,” the deceptively simple story of a sex worker, told in innuendos, “Jezebel, what a belle/Looks like a princess in her new dress/How did you get that?/Do you really want to know? she said.” Even though the lyrics are about Jezebel’s projected determination and control, the track is an example of Adu’s almost halting vocals conveying the emotion and backstory typically attributed to bigger voices.

Promise was the chaser to Diamond Life’s shot; one that positioned Sade for the elusive legend status she and the band have achieved today. They didn’t record Diamond Life with U.S. stardom in mind; that was a trial run. Promise was the commitment—a declaration of voice, sound, and style that was then unlike anything else in the mainstream sphere. Rather than a departure or different direction from the first album, Promise simply executes on a higher level, and the repeated success provided the leverage for the group to continue to follow their own formula, in their own time.

The quiet storm era encompassed everything from straight down the middle R&B (Luther Vandross), to classic soul, to jazzy soul (Anita Baker), to British imports (along with Sade, soul band Simply Red and synth-pop group Art of Noise were popular with the after-dark format). It wouldn’t have been unusual for “The Sweetest Taboo” to follow gospel-bred singer Shirley Murdock’s powerfully delivered “As We Lay,” or precede newcomer Whitney Houston’s glossy and gorgeous “Saving All My Love for You.” But I never needed Sade, the singer, to give me more vocally; I didn’t need the lyrics to go deeper. “It’s all simple and unpretentious, and that’s what music is to me,” Adu shared with Rolling Stone in a rare interview in 1985. “It should take you somewhere and move you in some way, and that’s what I want our songs to do.” — (via Pitchfork)
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The album was recorded at Power Plant Studios (England) And Studio Miraval (France). The vinyl audio uses high resolution digital transfers of the stereo master mixes, from the original studio recordings, remastered at half-speed at Abbey Road Studios. The elaborate, half-speed mastering process has produced exceptionally clean and detailed audio whilst remaining faithful to the band’s intended sound. No additional digital limiting was used in the mastering process, so the album benefits from the advantage of extra clarity and pure fidelity, preserving the dynamic range of the original mixes, presented on pure 180-gram heavyweight black vinyl.The original album sleeve and packaging elements have been meticulously reproduced in exact detail with authentic paper and printing methods

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Label: Epic
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Gatefold
Country: Europe
Reissued: 2024 / Original Release: 1985
Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul, Pop
Style: Soul, Soul-Jazz

File under: Contemporary R&B
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