The Petra Zone

And now to the last album of the Greg X. Volz' era...



Didja know... bassist Mark Kelly and drummer Louie Weaver did not perform in the album?

This one's a no-brainer for me. Although the album is full of great songs, "Adonai" is easily my #2 Petra song. Love it.

Still, "Beat the System" is a great rocker; "It is Finished", like "Grave Robber", is a great victorious song; and I have a soft spot for the wackiness and playful tone of "Witch Hunt". "Hollow Eyes" would probably be the weakest for me, and I still like it.

Lots of good ones on this disc. For me, There's just something about Voice in the Wind that just grabs me.

Voice In The Wind is a top 10 Petra song for me and also like Adonai & Beat The System. I like this album but for me it got old very quickly because of the style and change in sound. Too be honest I've had several non Petra fans listen to MPTY, NOTW, and BTS and were not able to tell that it was the same group and artist.

I've played Beat the System for some people who don't know Petra and asked asked them to try to place it in time. All of them has placed it in the 90's, for example 1996. Beat the system is techno pop of the 90's so Petra was ahead of their time here, but not in rock, in pop.

One of the first Petra albums I truly loved and played over and over. Adonai is such a powerful anthem that I will often sing/play it prior to my personal devotion time.

Witch Hunt is way to techno for me. JDB with too much time and not enough sleep!!

Love all the first 4 songs too. For me, the live version of speak to the sky on CITS is a much better mix.

Lot's of good tunes! Adonai is awesome! Not a big fan of Witch Hunt.

The first time I heard Witch Hunt, I was expecting something like Judas' Kiss in style... then the song came on. And I laughed so hard I almost cried. I actually loved it, just because it was so different! I'm not really a fan of the album, just because it sounded too overproduced or something. I like the CITAS versions better, to be honest.

Not a bad album, a tad to computerized for my all time favorite sound, but it is still one of my favorites!
Every time I hear Witch Hunt, in my mind I always have the perfect video going as I would imagine them chasing a witch around a tree and when they are walking over the dollars Louie finds the dime and everyone stops and looks at him, then tackles him, and Mark comes in last with an elbow drop. Where it talks about Don Quixote I see bob dressed like him attacking a wind mill on a putt putt golf course. Just crazy stuff like that. If I had a couple million dollars I would pay the guys to let me make the video, but as it is the video will just have to stay in my mind.

I really like this album. I loved it when it came out because it was so different than before. I think that most songs on here are keepers except God Gave Rock and Roll to You and Witch Hunt. They just did not do much for me.

I saw Petra in concert in 1985 at Astroworld in Houston when I was in high school. I gave my life to Christ at this concert so hearing these songs make me think back.

My favorite song on this album is Adonai. I love the arrangement and especially love Greg's vocals on this song. Man, could he sing. He still can as well, just maybe not as high as he used to.

I do wish that it had a little more guitar on it though. I also learned (through here) that Louie and Mark did not even play on this album so hearing them play the concert live was a treat for me. I liked Hollow Eyes live too because the keyboard that Mark Kelly played on it for the synth bass (Korg Poly-800), was also the first keyboard I had ever bought!

I also listened to Journey and other secular bands from this era (still do) and Petra had a different sound than they did although they were always compared to Journey.
What I realized was that not only do we listen to Petra and other Christian artists for the music aspect of the songs, but we really relate to the messages in the songs and they all praise God. This is what we are supposed to do. The music should be different because the focus is on Christ, not last night's conquest and such.

My favorite song is Adonai from this album and then everything else, except for GGRRTY and WH, which are dead last for me.

Grace,
Harry

Hmm, interesting to know that Mark Kelly played a keyboard/synth bass during the concert. Did he do that frequently or was that only for this 1985 tour?

Thief wrote:Hmm, interesting to know that Mark Kelly played a keyboard/synth bass during the concert. Did he do that frequently or was that only for this 1985 tour?

I am not sure for other albums and tours but I know that from different footage from CITAS that I've seen, he played the keyboard on that song. It was neat to see the same model of synth be played by the bassist

With that said, I've had a few of the ones that John Lawry had as well, including the Yamaha DX7. These were the goto boards of the day. The one that was not the goto board though was the Fairlight because it was a sampler and much more for lots of dollars. There were systems built at the time that exceeded $75k. They were used in studio quite a lot and one of the systems used to record Beat the System itself. They were very popular and expensive. You can pick out just abut any synth heavy album from the mid 80's and you could bet there was a Fairlight on it.

Michael W. Smith used it a lot on The Big Picture album from around the same period.

Grace,
Harry

Michael W. Smith used it a lot on The Big Picture album from around the same period.

One of his greatest works. Although I think I'm partial to the live recording and video. I believe he was using a DX7 there. I remember the Korg M1 being a popular board back in the day. D&K used one.

gman wrote:

Michael W. Smith used it a lot on The Big Picture album from around the same period.

One of his greatest works. Although I think I'm partial to the live recording and video. I believe he was using a DX7 there. I remember the Korg M1 being a popular board back in the day. D&K used one.

Oh just about everyone used a DX7 during the 80's. Michael W. Smith used lots of boards for sure, including the DX series. I have a copy of his Live Set CD from a 1987 concert and Yamaha DX series stuff was all over that stage. The Fairlight was more of a studio system but some performers took them onstage. There is lots of sequencing going on.

Petra did it too.

The Korg M1 was a synth that came out in 1988 though, after beat the System and after The Big Picture from MWS. MWS used lots of Korg products during the early 90's as well, including the 01/W ProX. This was essentially the 88 key version of the 01W and the newer model of the M1 (and the T series as well). The 01/W had more polyphony and a newer sound generation system based on the M1.

I still use an 05R/W from Korg which is basically a rack mount version of the 01/W because the pads/layers and some sounds are still that good.

During the BTS stuff, John Lawry used the DX7, Memorymoog, I believe some Roland stuff, and the Fairlight. he also I think had a Hammond organ too to be able to really jam into the earlier Petra stuff.

Bob Hartman used Zion guitars (custom for him I think) as well as others. He also used a Roland guitar synth during this time as well. mark I believe used Fender basses and Peavey amplification. I think that Louie used yamaha drums, if memory serves

Grace,
Harry

Beat the System is my vote, this album almost projected Petra to mainstream - I shared it with a lot of my friends and got many of them to start listening to the band.