Jon McLaughlin's new album Promising Promises embodies McLaughlin's irresistible songwriting style along with his sweetly melancholic approach to storytelling. As he explains, "It feels really good to have a record that I'm working on that I can really deliver wholeheartedly knowing that the fans are getting a piece of me." He continues, "There isn t a note on the record that I didn't spend hours scrutinizing over, or at the very least sitting with and playing over and over again. I feel like it's a real connection to me." Promising Promises takes flight on the album's first single, "Summer Is Over," (featuring Sara Bareilles) written for a friend in the throes of a crushing break-up. The track is the perhaps the most incendiary of Jon's career. Also at the core of Promising Promises are songs like "These Crazy Times,' (written after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill), "If Only I" (bearing a different take on loss, written from the perspective of a person deeply, madly in love with someone they've never worked up the courage to talk to) and the album's consuming title track, "Promising Promises," a piano tour-de-force.