Synth EP Review: “Empty Promises” by A Days Wait & Color Theory

by Karl Magi

A Days Wait & Color Theory’s “Empty Promises” EP takes listeners on a mournful, tender journey through complicated emotions. This is music for the soul and the heart which touches me deeply as it unfolds.

“Empty Promises” begins with an expansive synth carrying a breezy melody out above smoothly intertwining guitar. The lead singer’s voice is wistful and full of tenderness, while the rhythm cruises easily and a synth dances with affectionate light. The drums clash as a glimmering background is woven by Color Theory, with a piano that twinkles like sunlight.

The underpinnings slide on as the lead singer’s gently touching vocals mix melancholy with a dreamy feeling and the synth line bubbles with delicate smoothness. Bell tones ring as the drum beat adds shape. The piano swirls and glistens while the vocals wrap around me with hurting tenderness and move me. The foundation drifts again as the rippling notes shine and silence falls.

“It feels like my very first time away, making empty promises again,” as he sees the song’s subject hanging around all day. He adds, “I was trying to keep you safe. It seemed like we should have had it all, but now it seems that we should go.” Coming back around again, on the road back home, he thought they’d make it out alive, but he was losing hope. He continues, “It’s not the very first time I’ve said I don’t feel like growing up.”

“Now I see you hanging around my head,” and he understands what that’s all about. He points out that “we won’t make it on our own if we fall apart,” so they’ll have to “muddle forward to the tune of a beating heart.”

A deeply reverberating synth carries a slightly mysterious melody over steadily throbbing drums to start “New Souls.” A synth quickly flickers with shadowy sensations and the lead singer’s velvety, emotionally broken voice carries the wandering melodic line. A glockenspiel sparkles as the lead singer’s sweet, pained voice delivers a soothing melody, while the bright synth glows with soft sensations.

I am transported by the emotional power of the vocalist while Color Theory creates luscious softness. As the pattering rhythm adds form, galactic tones gleam and the underpinnings guide the other sounds. The lead singer’s voice has a thoughtful fragility, while the piano wraps around the words with a sense of contemplation and lightness before the song ends.

“Headed for a reset, I’ve been lying to the people I don’t know yet,” and living in places the narrator won’t go. He adds, “Hold my hand and maybe you and I can follow slow.” He says there’s a room in the basement full of all the things he’s replacing. He goes on to say, “Step outside and we could forage for a new soul.” He’s been trying to do that, but can never make it whole. “Then the long nights arrive when it starts to fall apart inside.”

“I was wrong to say that I didn’t know and now the words are holding me back,” and as our storyteller would trade for a newer soul that is “purpose built for you to unpack.” He finds himself on the defensive and says, “We are depleted and absolved from all the repent.” He invites the song’s subject to take a step outside and “let the virtues start to unfold, I’ve been dying to exonerate the untold.”

As the song concludes, the narrator says, “I could try to be somebody, let you model me in your way. Everything between is always all for you.”