The Petra Zone

I have a found that it took awhile for some cd's to grow on me. I really disliked God Fixation at first, but now really appreciate the music now as my tastes grow musically.

HOWEVER, most of the music on DT sounds the same to me. I love The Longing, but with the exception of that and Breathe In, I have to listen to the lyrics to figure out what song it is.

Am I alone in my opinion of this?

You are not alone. "Double Take" is in my opinion the worst Petra album, with "Revival" in second.
I have no idea why Petra realeased a new version of some of their best songs ever, but it was a huge mistake. All the songs sounds same to me.
I hope that Petra have learned something from that failure and dont make bad re-makes of their own music. Waste of time.

Yeah, I gave Double Take away shortly after I bought it back when it first came out. Never bought it again. I don't own it or God Fixation, but I have every other Petra disc (including the 300 greatest hits complilations. Found them on clearance and had to rescue them!). That sound just wasn't Petra to me. I won't knock 'em, though, because a whole generation of Petra fans know them by those CD's. I'm just the old guy jamming to This Means War and Beyond Belief!

I liked it. As an average music fan, I liked the experimental nature of it, relative to what they had been doing. I felt like they were able to stretch and do something different. Maybe it laid some groundwork for II Guys, in that they saw they could do something other than blazing guitar solos and big drums? I think it works really well as a complete album.

To each his or her own.

Many people don't like the Double Take and I respect that, but the album has a few strong points. First: OK, it's not an all out super rock album but here we have the band trying to do something different and they won a Grammy for that. Second: In my church, it's totally impossible to use the original This Means War! song (Lamentably, to this day many people continue to say that Christian Rock is evil), but one day I used the Double Take version and the people liked it. Many people were touched by the message and the musical style of the Double Take version. So, I think that we need to gave the album and the band more credits for that album...

Bands don't win Grammys. EVER. Grammys are what they are, insiders nominating each other's project so they can get nominated, so that everyone makes more money. Votes are bought and sold all the time. This is not like a people's choice award or something where popularity plays a part. It was one of the worst selling Petra records and it gets a Grammy nod? Please.

Yeah, as much as I love Petra, I just can not defend or appreciate that album. When I first heard they were going to do an acoustic album of their past hits I was thrilled. I envisioned something like the acoustic version of Ready, Willing and Able that they did on video. A whole album of unplugged versions like that would have been awesome, but no, that's not what they did at all. Instead, it's almost as if they purposely set out to see just how lame they could make these songs sound and still get Word to release it. Now I ain't saying they did that, but that's just how it came across to me. It was a waste of perfectly good album opportunity and yes, I hope they learned something from the mistake. This album was without question Petra's version of New Coke.

cvs2kids wrote:I really disliked God Fixation at first, but now really appreciate the music now as my tastes grow musically.

St_Augustines_Pears wrote:

cvs2kids wrote:I really disliked God Fixation at first, but now really appreciate the music now as my tastes grow musically.

I might have to revisit God Fixation myself. I have been listening to the word compilations, and the song "God Fixation" is pretty cool. That and "St. Augustine's Pears" are the only two songs I remember. It was just so much different from the Petra I grew up with, I couldn't get into it at the time.

In my opinion, God Fixation is the worse Petra Album after 80's and Double Take is a good album !

DT was very well produced with rich music details. And it's very interesting how they rearrenge songs in a very different way. I did not like the new songs of this album !

Musically, in my opinion, Pete Orta and Kevin Brandow were not worth to be Petra members !!!

Apparently, many people don't like God Fixation or Double Take or both...

I actually liked God Fixation a fair bit. Granted, it wasn't classic Petra for the most part, but it had some good offerings. If I had to die, Magnet of the World and St. Augustine's Pears are all among my all time favorite Petra songs. Some others like God Fixation and A Matter of Time are not among my all time favs, but are certainly decent enough songs to enjoy. So that's half an albums worth of good material, which puts it about on par with No Doubt IMO. Not the best but also not the worst.

I absolutely loved the Double take album coz of the "Rich musical details" it offers. Listen to it as a fan of music and not as a rock-freak and you'll notice that its great-musically. The melodies are sweet and up to date, great orchestra dramatize the music.

Of course, there are a few things about it that I still do not like e.g. the guitars not being audible enough and the acute deficiency of solos.

Perhaps the dislike of the album by many a Pethead is a result of poor album timing (when fans were anticipating an all-out rock album) and changes in the band line up.

I have not been privileged to see Petra live but from the concert videos, I think Kevin Brandow and Gibson were the best guitarists Petra had other than Bob. Pete would have been at the same platform except for dramatizing his performances too much at the expense of precision and band cohesion.

Bob is the best no doubt but was too keen on reproducing the songs as they were in the album. Well, that works well with an aging (and therefore rigid) fanbase uninterested in hearing renditions of the original music.

Double Take Sucked except for the Judas' Kiss, BTS, and TMW versions. I actually liked the rough mixes that have been circulating around better.

As for God Fixation: If I had to die for someone, God Fixation, Matter Of Time, St Augustine's Pears, The Invitaion, Magnet of the World= Great Petra tracks IMO. The rest sucked.