The Petra Zone

Just listened to it....for the first time....since the year it came out.

There is some great bass and guitar work on there. I like a handful of tunes. It is not my fav Petra record by any stretch. I don't hate it now like I did when it first came out. It is still one notch below No Doubt.

Brent,
Which songs do you like on No Doubt and which ones do you like on God Fixation?

I like both records; overall, but my top three songs on each are
No Doubt's:
Think Twice
Heart of a Hero
Think on These Things

God Fixation's:
A Matter of Time
Magnet of the World
The Invitation

If you listen to it from a non Petra angle it really is a great album with a good raw or organic feel to it. If you as a fan went in looking for the Petra vibe you probably came away disappointed but over time the album has really grown on me and is no longer in the lower half ranking of Petra albums. BTW Kevin Brandow played drums on at least one track maybe two with my understanding, but I'm not sure which tracks they are.

Exactly exec.

If you can't slap the steering wheel of the minivan with "Matter of Time", something is wrong. What an album review that would have made. I like the whole thing actually, but as a John Schlitt solo album, which is how I listen to it. Over The Horizon is probably my least fav. Don't care for how the lyrics are done. Love the music though. Exec is right. It is a great record, just not my ideal Petra record. A couple of the acoustic elements tip their hat to vintage Petra. I like that.

No Doubt:

We Hold Our Hearts....ok, this song sounds 80s to me, like it ought to be on the Top Gun sound track.
For All Your Worth...great song, just not a Petra song.
Sincerely yours...great song, just not a Petra song. A great John solo song.
All of those songs have elements or progressions reminding me of "Every Time You Go Away"...you take a piece of me with you...whatever...Hall & Oates I think.

I actually like No Doubt as a Petra song for some reason. It doesn't sound like it was hard to create. It kind of flows. It sounds as if it was effortless. They others sound a bit more dated and like they might have been influenced by outside forces. I might be wrong on all accounts, but that is how it makes me feel.

The main issue I have with No Doubt was the complete departure from the previous albums; except for John Schlitt singing nothing sounded like Petra on that album, and there was only one musician change Lawry/Cooper for the album with Bob still playing on the album, so why the drastic change? I think Brent said it best when he feels there was some outside influence with the album. I still feel No Doubt is by far the worst offering ever put out by Petra.

I didn't much care for God Fixation when it first came out -- it was a bit of an aural shock when I was expecting it to sound like a Petra album -- but it's really grown on me over time, and now I really like it. As I've said elsewhere, it's a very good album, just not a very good Petra album.

executioner wrote:I still feel No Doubt is by far the worst offering ever put out by Petra.

I would find it hard to argue against that. It's all the worse for being the follow-up to one of their all-time best albums, Wake Up Call.

At the time these albums were first released, I would have given anything for a Petra album to listen to, just like now, so I'm not going to complain about these albums. (hintedy, hint, hint, hint)

I suppose you could adopt the "bad Petra is better than no Petra" mentality, but I sometimes think I'd rather there had been no Petra after Wake Up Call than to watch them decline the way they did.

If you were to piece together all the best moments from all the albums that came out between Wake Up Call and Jekyll and Hyde, you probably come up with enough material for one good album. So there you go, invent your own album.

I guess the 2 Matthew picked I could live with from No Doubt; I would go with 3 off of PP2 "Be Of Good Cheer", "I Waited" & "Lovely Lord" I'm a rocker at heart but "Lovely Lord" is one of my all time Bob Hartman written songs.


Next anyone...

Mountain Man wrote:

executioner wrote:I still feel No Doubt is by far the worst offering ever put out by Petra.

I would find it hard to argue against that. It's all the worse for being the follow-up to one of their all-time best albums, Wake Up Call.

This is probably why I dislike No Doubt so much because Wake Up Call is such a great album and I guess I expected continued greatness because the previous 5 or so albums were really, really good.

"More Than A Thousand Words" is one of my all time favorite Petra songs, which is ironic since it comes from my least favorite Petra album.

How about we all just invent our own individual albums? Would be interesting to hear what songs everybody would pick from those albums to make up one album with say 10 to 12 songs.

Here's how mine would shape up

Enter In
Heart of a Hero
More Than a Thousand Words
No Doubt
Be of Good Cheer
Lord, I Lift Your Name on High
If I Had to Die for Someone
Magnet of the World
A Matter of Time
St. Augustine's Pears
We Want to See Jesus Lifted High
How Long

I think my name for the album will be "Petra - Rearranged".

More Power To Ya and Wake Up Call.

Done. As far as I'm concerned, those are the quintessential albums from their respective eras.