Available for the first time on streaming services, the Expanded Edition features four bonus tracks—"Time," "Little Jane," "Red Eye to Memphis," and "Let Me Try"—and is also available on 2LP black vinyl featuring a gatefold jacket and 12-page LP-sized booklet.

Newly remastered by longtime Bob Seger mastering engineer Robert Vosgien, the Expanded Edition includes the hit singles "Wait for Me" and "Wreck This Heart." Among the album's highlights is "The Answer's In The Question," Seger's duet with Patty Loveless. In 2023, Seger helped induct Loveless into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Originally released on September 12, 2006, Face The Promise marked Seger's 16th studio album. Acclaimed by critics and embraced by fans, it debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and was certified Platinum by the RIAA just three months later.

Twenty years after its release, Face The Promise remains one of the defining statements in Seger's catalog, reaffirming the songwriting, grit, and heartland spirit that made him one of America's most enduring rock artists.

Seger is an inductee of both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The 2015 Billboard Legend of Live honoree's catalog has earned 13 platinum and 8 multi-platinum RIAA Certified sales awards, including his Diamond-certified Greatest Hits, which remains a perennial bestseller. Seger is Capitol Records' longest-tenured solo artist in the label’s storied history.

"With the new Face The Promise, Mr. Seger gets back in the game and sounds as if he hasn't lost a step. The first single, 'Wait for Me,' is a sweeping ballad, but much of the album … is a surprisingly hard-rocking effort." —The New York Times

"… this fine new album, a record that easily stands shoulder to shoulder with his albums, 'The Distance' and 'Against the Wind' … the songs are so rich—rising choruses crashing against majestic chords, bumper-sticker lyrics leaping out of the pounding rock—that 'Face The Promise' sounds like another Seger classic from the first moment. When it comes to real-life American rock heroes, the voice of the heartland and all that, Bob Seger is the real deal." —San Francisco Chronicle

"[Seger] has crafted a disc of straightforward, R&B-infused rock that owes much to the sound of his classics from the '70s and '80s. Seger is a master of the graceful, melodic, mid-tempo ballad, and his new tunes 'Wait for Me' and 'The Long Goodbye' are among his finest compositions." —Chicago Sun-Times

"The killer moment comes during the title track, a barreling piece of songwriting with spidery Duane Eddy-style guitar.… Seger offers more dead-on renderings of his Michigan-sired rock as though it's the hottest new style in town, burning significant rubber on 'Wreck This Heart' and ascending to heights of dashboard eloquence on 'Wait for Me.'" —Rolling Stone

"The Motor City rocker is still the same, rolling out sweaty arena anthems with no signs of rust or depreciation.… the champion of 'Old Time Rock & Roll' is making good-time rock 'n' roll with the same heartland hardiness." —USA Today

"The Midwesterner's new disc highlights his unadorned, plainspoken style, best experienced on rugged blue-collar ruminations like 'Wreck This Heart.' This is satisfying meat-and-potatoes rock." —Entertainment Weekly

"Now comes the long-awaited 'Face The Promise' … The new album is an authoritative song cycle filled with contemporary variations on classic Seger themes.…Face The Promise rocks with the same ferocious intensity that characterized his classic Seventies albums." —Guitar World Acoustic

Track Listing*

LP1 SIDE ONE

1.     Wreck This Heart

2.     Wait For Me

3.     Face The Promise

4.     No Matter Who You Are

LP1 SIDE TWO

1.     Are You

2.     Simplicity

3.     No More

4.     Real Mean Bottle (duet with Kid Rock)

5.     Won’t Stop

LP2 SIDE THREE

1.     Between

2.     The Answer’s In The Question (duet with Patty Loveless)

3.     The Long Goodbye

LP2 SIDE FOUR Expanded Edition Bonus Tracks

1.     Time

2.     Little Jane

3.     Red Eye To Memphis

4.     Let Me Try

* CD, Digital Download, and Streaming configurations are the same sequence of tracks.

50 years ago in the now-defunct Melody Maker periodical, I interviewed Bob Seger just after his Night Moves LP garnered platinum album status and a gold album for Live Bullet.

I had briefly encountered him previously in 1975 one night at a pizza joint in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd when he was at a table sitting next to me and my girlfriend Fran at the time. He was impressed when I rattled off the LP titles of his Detroit-based group The Bob Seger System, and that I knew Glenn Frey of the Eagles got his first recording studio job singing back-up and playing guitar on his hit single, “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man.’

We had a brief chat about the legendary Michigan music man Del Shannon. In 1964, Shannon produced a demo session for Seger, and then gave acetates of their work to Dick Clark. Del had been on one of the Clark American Bandstand-fueled tours in 1965. By 1966, Seger was recording for the Philadelphia-based Camero Records.  

I told him we’d schedule an interview in the very near future. A PR person at Capitol Records then subsequently arranged an interview for us.

I asked Seger how he liked Detroit as a musical/creative environment?

"That's where my friends are. That's where my family is. Detroit is where I get the news. I've been to every restaurant in Detroit," he laughs.

"I don't know if I could look that deep and say my lyrics or the music reflect Detroit. Everywhere else I see the inside of hotels and concert halls. I like the lifestyle of Detroit. The Motor City Madness. Ten Years ago it was one-tenth the size. There's room in the industry now for myself, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop.

The emergence of FM radio in the last Sixties has been Bob Seger's life-line to survival. In the last couple of years, a new Seger album or a single like ‘Night Moves’ is played months before the Gods determine who gets on the AM radio dial.

"Some good tunes start on the FM band and cross over to AM FM radio for rock stations is needed. More slots for people to be heard. People like myself, Bruce Springsteen, Graham Parker, Mink de Ville, Southside Johnny, Frankie Miller can be heard on the radio."

With Stranger In Town, Bob Seger and the Sliver Bullet Band have broken new territory. Not a concept album, a theme project or string symphony, it tackles other topics than roadwork, romance, and partying.

"I've written the first ballad I've ever done. When I say ballad, I mean a real slow song. You have to strive to break new turf. There's a song on the new album, 'Feel Like A Number', which is about alienation. And the title track is about fear and alter ego.

"'Brave Strangers' is about the end of a relationship. It's a motif I've ever done before. It was a challenge. We're knocked out by the tune and have been playing it in our show the last two months.

"There's a line in 'Brave Strangers', 'Radio blasting silly little love songs, we only listen to the beat.' And that's the key line to that song. That's the way it was back then. I write songs and want them to translate to the stage.

"When I write now, I tend to think about important things. Things that still excite me. 'Night Moves' was about youthful passion and the danger of letting that slip away. My songs are autobiographically rooted 'cause I'm not writing hypothetically. You work on a theme.

"Sometimes it's external, commenting about society. When you write a song that means a lot to you, you can put down 50 verses and pick the best ones. If you write fiction, it's a lot tougher to write it."

Live Bullet, a two-record set of live Seger songs, was issued over a year ago as a ‘holding action’ while Night Moves was still being finished. However, a year later the disc is still on full rotation on many major radio playlists.

Live Bullet is probably the best introduction to Bob Seger. The versions of ‘Beautiful Loser’ and ‘Travelin' Man’ on the live long player are classic gritty Seger. A fusion of Dave Van Ronk and James Brown.

"That night we played well. We deliberately played away from the 16-track machines rolling and to the audience. We were able to take more chances and work harder. I liked the idea of bringing in the audience and getting them involved.

"We also cut Live Bullet in our hometown. The people have heard the songs thousands of times. Sometimes you get careful in the studio and you can stretch out during a live performance. You take risks.

"There's a big influence of James Brown in the Silver Bullet Band. I used to see his shows years ago and modelled myself after him. He moves so well."

I remember when Seger was playing the Whisky A Go Go in 1973. He seemed clumsy and awkward doing the lead guitar chores. Shortly afterwards, he dropped his axe and concentrated on singing.

"A weight was lifted from my shoulder when I stopped playing lead guitar,” he admitted. “I started developing as a singer and concentrated on the performance aspect of my career."

Through the last few years, Seger has vacillated between Capitol and Warner Brothers Records, before signing a long-term pact with Capitol. The earlier Capitol regime, and to some extent even today, seems more at ease marketing Beatles and Beatles-related products than grooming new acts, and mainstays on the label. Was Bob ever discouraged during the lean years? There was almost a decade between top 30 singles (‘Ramblin' Gamblin' Man’ to ‘Night Moves’)

"One time I quit and even enrolled in college for about six weeks. It was after the Noah album in 1969. It resulted from having a big national hit with 'Ramblin' Gamblin' Man' and no follow-up. It was a simple loss of confidence. But I came back and stuck with it."

Seger has been a Midwest legend for years. And while the rest of the world discovers this fellow, Detroit and Cobo Hall are well represented on the live set.

"They are the best audience in the world. We could always headline in the Midwest years back. I even did a stadium show last year. This last time I was able to go out in public was in 1975. It's wonderful that the people know who I am, but I don't like the on-the-street adulation. Detroit audiences are the best to play for, but the toughest to please.

"The show we will do for England will be a bit longer than usual, and we'll incorporate some of the material we've been doing as early as the Bachman-Turner Overdrive tour of 1974: 'Heavy Music,' 'Bo Diddley' — some of the real early stuff, the things that helped us get our feet through the door."

I wondered if financial reward and/or Top 30 success made it easier or tougher to prepare for Stranger In Town.

"I've always made music. It's what I enjoyed, whether making money or not. I've been doing it for 15 years and successfully for the last three. The main thing money will buy for me is privacy. I was able to pay off all my debts, and my house is paid for.

"There's no guarantee something will happen when you sit down to write a song. It's the most frustrating thing in the world. You look at a blank sheet of paper, and you have to fill it up. The major differences in my songwriting now, as opposed to three or four years back, is if I really like a certain song, I'll work on that song really hard.

"I used to write a million songs, but I would put same amount of effort into each one. That's the only thing that's changed. If I'm really committed to a song, I'll work and work on it until it just can't be improved, and that's what I did on 'Night Moves', that particular song."

There's one subject that Bob Seger loves to talk about — Bruce Springsteen. "I've got an affinity with Bruce Springsteen, Graham Parker and Southside Johnny. We're rockers with blues roots.

"I've met Bruce a few times and really like him. It just fried me out to think that he had independently developed the same type of group out of New Jersey. I enjoy him because I see a lot of my approach in his work.

"The first time I saw him was in March of 1975 when Born To Run was released. I saw him in Ann Arbor. It was a phenomenal show. Blew my mind. Freaked me out.'

"I had already written part of the Night Moves album and the performance was an extra incentive to finish the rest of the tunes. I locked myself in a room for two weeks and finished the album.

"It was easier for me to finish up Night Moves when I heard Born To Run. Something signalled I wasn't alone any more. There's some one else who thinks like I think. The movie American Graffiti triggered another response and made me think back when I was a teenager. Break into new themes."

It's not unusual to hear some vintage Seger sounds over the Whiskey sound system of the Starwood's p.a. during a break in live action. In fact, a lot of the new wave and punk rock bands I talk to acknowledge Seger as an influence. Punk rock journals and fanzines are compiling definite discographies on Seger's history. Could Bob see his influence on the new wave?

"Yeah, I think Ted Nugent, and myself, have a link with the new bands. For the main reason that it's all pretty aggressive music. You won't see Ted or myself ever doing 'Bridge Over Troubled Water.'

"I'd imagine some of the new groups like my roots. I have a bond with the Fifties as opposed to the Sixties, where a lot of our big successes now — Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles — are basically influenced by the Sixties. A lot of the punk rock groups touch the primal attitude of Fifties rock music.

"I play very directly to my audience and need energy feedback from them. This seems to be a parallel to the new wave and their audience."

What's all the more likeable about Bob Seger is that after the hits he remains just as accessible, with an ear to the street.

"When you close yourself, you lose all contact. You have to meet your audience. I'm sensitive to reviews, and I'm sensitive. I have nothing to hide — it's all in the grooves."

(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 21 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon, 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972, 2015's Every Body Knows: Leonard Cohen, 2016's Heart of Gold Neil Young and 2017's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love.   

Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021, they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. 

Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. His Screen Gems: (Pop Music Documentaries and Rock ‘n’ Roll TV Scenes) was published in 2026 by BearManor Media. Kubernik is working on a book on the Beatles for fall 2027 publication.   

Harvey wrote the liner notes to CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.     Harvey spoke at the special hearings in 2006 initiated by the Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation. 

In 2017, he appeared at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in its Distinguished Speakers Series and as a panelist discussing the forty-fifth anniversary of The Last Waltz at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2023.)

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