The Petra Zone

Something that's always bugged me: Revival could have been a great album -- on par with Petra's previous two praise albums. However, here are the problems that I think kept it from being a modern favorite with us Petheads:

1) The production: Is it just me, or are Bob's guitars mixed wayyyyy too low in most of the songs? For example, there's the brief guitar solo in "Amazing Grace" that practically drowns the guitar out to the point that you can barely tell it's there. Petra mixed it the right way on the LIVE version of the song on the Farewell album.

2) Lack of creativity: It's almost like Inpop was afraid to let Petra go into the studio and really let'r rip. Most of the songs, particularly "Better is One Day," really show a lack of creative flare. Most of the songs are very ho-hum: verse-chorus-verse-chorus...and done. No cool guitar riffs like in Jekyll and Hyde, no stand-out/memorable drum work by Louie.

3) Let's face it: Petra just wasn't Petra unless John Schlitt was giving it his all. I know that he has a great soft voice for ballads, but they tried to make him sing in a very low tone for the main portion of most songs. Like's like telling a gun-slinger from the old west to show his stuff with an empty gun.

On the Revival DVD, one of the producers said that the album would give old Petra fans something to latch onto as well as fans who had never heard the band. Despite some good songs (Send Revival, Oasis, We Want To See Jesus Lifted High, How Long), this album seemed to strip Petra of the identity that made us all Petra fans in the beginning....without giving new listeners a reason to like what they were hearing.

Take a listen to Petra Praise 2, which I recently did after not listening to it in a good long while. That album was classic - yet modern - Petra Praise. Unfortunately, I think the Sonic Flood producers, while well-intentioned, really blew it.

Any thoughts?

I'll echo my comments from the Revival cd thread.

This was a Sonic Flood album with guest appearences by Petra.

Honestly, I'm not sure if anything could have saved the franchise by this point, but J&H would have been the better CD to release after DT.

Revival wasn't classic Petra.

I agree that Revival, while enjoyable, could have been much better. The point about John's vocals right. The second half of Send Revival is the only time John uses his 'rock voice'. Except that you can hear it faintly mixed in as BGVs in several songs.

That brings me to another point about vocals. It sounds like all of the BGVs are just layers and layers of John. While John has a great voice, I prefer the rich texture of having different voices on background. This is where you kind of miss John Elefante. In my opinion, having his vocals helped shape the definitive Petra sound of the late 80s early 90s era. Just listen to a song like Underground and you'll see what I mean. They got the BGV thing right with J&H though by bringing in more voices (including Jamie Rowe).

I was fairly disappointed with WWTSJLH though. On first listen I thought that it was starting subdued and that it would build and explode into a full-blown rocker. It never happened. They just kept repeating the same verse and chorus over and over again in the exact same way for five minutes.

The one other thing that would have helped this album out would have been even just one Bob Hartman-penned praise song. I mean, the guy knows how to write. I don't get the fact that they made a big deal about bringing Bob back, but didn't let him write any songs.

Put it all together, and they could have very easily turned a decent album into a great one.

ljlegner wrote:
On the Revival DVD, one of the producers ...

Call me a bit behind the times, but I didn't even know of the Revival DVD existed!

I just found it on half.com

Thanks!

I don't even consider that album a Petra record myself. But, that is where the band was at the time. John likes doing those songs by the way. That's what he told me anyway. I try not to put bands or people in a box and confine them to what I like. They may not even like the style that they are known for. They may be tired of it. So as a consumer, I pick and choose what I like from the vast selection of bands out there, instead of forcing one band to meet all of my needs.

This is what I have learned by experience. At some point, the music has to change. The delivery has to change. The styles, the production, etc all must change. People grow tired of sameness. The performers and the audience.

Again, I didn't care for it either. Had I been in charge at the label, I would have said "Petra introduced me to Christian rock, I love this band and ministry, and so here is a check. Go do what you do best. Melt people's ears with guitar, and lots of it! See you in three months boys!" But no. The money was wasted on music I don't like, because I am a guy, and I prefer a Tim Taylor approach to praise and worship. He does cool stuff, that guys think is cool, and no body sings about that.

I love how differently we all think. When I saw this complaint (especially the part about lack of creativity) I had to laugh, as I consider all praise music to lack creativity and originality. This is the nature of praise music! It's crappy but people put up with it because the heart seems to be in the right place.

I consider the praise albums to be three of my least favorite Petra albums, not because they are singularly bad (which none of them are), but because the praise style pales so badly in comparison to Petra's original material. And they do not lend themselves to any kind of imagery and I'm starting to actually hate them as I have no ideas in regards to CIP for them.


I will say that all three of Petra's praise albums were reasonably better than most praise music-though it is true the big strike against this one was that it included Better is One Day, one of the longest most boring root-canal-would-be-preferable praise songs ever written. People must indeed be crying out to God whenever that song is played-to make it stop.
It could never be a lion tamer.

Finally, some people who agree with me on Revival. This was the most bland Petra work ever. The only redeaming factor of this album is that it lead to the live version of Amazing Grace on Farewell. The Revival version totally lost me.

Charl, though I agree with you, for the most part, about praise music, the difference between Revival and the first two is this. In the first two, Petra was actually being creative and setting the trend. It may not have been the best music, but I felt Petra was doing something they were really excited about doing. Revival was just reactionary to what the market was already doing.

Long live Jekyll and Hyde and Farewell.

I tried listening to it again on Friday just to see if I've missed somethings like creativity, but it still sounds like the same old boring songs that never go anywhere still of music. That is what most CCM sounds like today.

I'll have to let a couple family members listen to this album and tell me what they think. I can think of a couple people who would be perfect. They have no ties to or preferences in Petra during the Schlitt era.

But really I think one christian reviewer put it best. This is PETRA we are talking about here, and PETRA means ROCK.

Sure artists change and attempt to adapt, but this stuff woulda worked fine as a solo release and I certainly would not have minded if John did this stuff during a Petra tour as part of a P&W section. Because I think stuff like that has an importance in a live arena.

That's what solo releases are for so that band members can explore other musical arena's without agitating their fan base. If the album happens to take off, then you hop on the roller coaster as fast as you can and enjoy the ride!

But when it comes to stuff released under the Petra banner. They shoulda stuck with the crunchy guitar licks.

Pure and Simple.

That being said if I ever got around to updating my custom play lists I'd probably slap this in the petra praise list which pretty much consists of all their praise stuff and a few titles from Swine.

If I had a "Praise and Worship" mix, I'd probably stuff it in there as well. Actually though when I think about it. Songs that put me in a worshipful state of mind certainly do not sound like anything that is out today in the P&W field. I once tried starting a list a few years ago when this P&W craze started but I never did finish it.

I agree that this album doesn't really sound like Petra for the most part. It was odd that they released it when they did, because after God Fixation and Double Take, fans were clamoring for a back-the-basics rip-roaring rock-n-roll album...and we got a generic praise and worship album instead. Was this realy what Petra wanted to do, or was this basically an Inpop decision? I suspect it was an Inpop decision, because when Jeckyll & Hyde came out, you could almost hear the band sigh and say, "Now we can finally give the fans what they've been asking for!"