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A killer. A crusher. The Worm… The Promise. This is one of the most classic records of the 90’s, standing the test of time twice over as far as I’m concerned. Ringworm’s debut lp “The Promise” is also quite notorious for sounding like total crap. The fact that it has overcome that infamy and is known firstly as just a great metallic hardcore album is quite a feat.

Ringworm released their demo in ‘91 (I think), and it has quite a bit to offer as basically a hybrid of Entombed, Cro Mags, Raw Deal, and Slayer. It’s pretty thick sounding not to mention one of the first recordings of its kind, and it prompted a “deal” and a little bit of cash from Incision Records to do an lp. According to liner notes in the reissue, the first day was spent dicking off, drunk as hell, and the next day the band realized they had nothing usable recorded. A couple days and a rush job later they had The Promise. There’s nothing wrong with it really, but it’s kind of thin sounding, and some of the rerecorded songs sound tighter on their demo. This is also part of the charm, it’s a punk band playing metal loose and simple and if it was different it wouldn’t quite be the same.

The Promise opens with a soundbite of some dude saying “There is no God” and then a quick guitar rev into the “Numb” intro. If Warzone were evil instead of good, maybe this is what their intro would have sounded like. It has some speedy tremolo picking and then eventually goes into a double bass-heavy chugging part. When the intro ends the band rip into Blind To Faith, a pretty straight forward anti-religion number and an all time classic. It cuts with a choppy crunch and thud like Raw Deal’s Tell Tale but again with more of an evil death metal type riffing style. The vocals come with an instantly recognizable and unique style and delivery, I’d expect nothing less from a singer known as The Human Furnace (seriously), and he really proves why he has that name because he spits straight FIRE. The album works its way through a few more tracks peppering the attack with some blast beats and single note tremolo stuff to enhance the death metal vibe, before coming to the title track and centerpiece of the album.

The Promise (the song) works a heavy minor key progression that almost borders on an actual melody. Vocals get some additional echo treatment which is surprisingly sparse for an album that’s this “metal”. A positively murderous breakdown ties this one up nice and neat with a good skank beat. The B-side takes off with Death Do Us Part which opens with a bass line worthy of a Breakdown demo but within about 20 seconds finds itself in Repulsion territory although the blasting isn’t quite as fast. Consumed is a 5 second jam which there’s also a version of on one of the Bleaurgh comps. It goes right into 13 Knots, a Ringworm fan fav. If you weren’t sure where the band stand on religion, I believe the proclamation in this song of “I have touched the face of God/and it is cold and it is dead” should help you along in figuring it out.

The original pressing of this record is on Orange vinyl as seen here, probably out of 1,000. I have seen a couple of black copies, and I recollect that the band seemed to not know about these existing. My guess would be there was an overrun of a couple hundred covers and the label pressed the black vinyl later to fill the covers out and sent them to distributors.