Promise and Terror is the fifth and last studio album by English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Blaze Bayley, released in 2010. It is the second studio album released by the band since they changed their name from Blaze. It is also the first Blaze Bayley album without a title track.

Themes

The songs on Promise and Terror are very diverse in their themes; the first half of the album is more upbeat and positive, but the second half is darker and more introspective. Surrounded By Sadness, the first acoustic song since the band changed their name, starts a four song run-in, as the last songs on the album are thematically connected. As stated in the sleeve notes inside the album cover, the last four songs follow the four steps of dealing with personal tragedy: loss, pain, grief, and acceptance. These songs mostly address the loss of Bayley's wife and the struggle he and the band have had in the music world.

Reception

The pre-sale for Promise and Terror quickly became the biggest in Blaze Bayley's history, as it charted at number 3 on UK pre-orders before its release. Blaze Bayley himself has stated that Promise and Terror is his best selling solo album to date.

Professional reviews have ranged from positive to enthusiastic for Promise and Terror.

Track listing

1. Watching The Night Sky - 3:36
2. Madness And Sorrow - 3:09
3. 1633 - 6:03
4. God Of Speed - 5:48
5. City Of Bones - 6:26
6. Faceless - 3:46
7. Time To Dare - 5:41
8. Surrounded By Sadness - 3:59
9. The Trace Of Things That Have No Words - 5:48
10. Letting Go Of The World - 6:24
11. Comfortable In Darkness - 4:29

Personnel

• Blaze Bayley
  Blaze Bayley
  Blaze Bayley is an English singer and songwriter. He has been the lead singer of Wolfsbane from 1984 to 1994, and nowadays since their recent reunion. Blaze is however world-known for having been the lead singer of British metal band Iron Maiden from 1994 to 1999...
  
   – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  
• Nico Bermudez – lead guitar
  Lead guitar
  Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
  
  
• Jay Walsh – rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar
  Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
  
  
• David Bermudez – bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• Lawrence Paterson – drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Jase Edwards - Producer
  Record producer
  A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
  
  , First Guitar Solo
  Guitar solo
  In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...
  
  on Madness and Sorrow.