Dairenn
Recording Artist
Recently, Jim Peterik appeared as a guest for the Blake Aaron Radio Show on FM 88.5 KSBR and during his interview, he had mentioned that he was supposed to be on a flight with Bill Chase of a jazz-rock fusion band named Chase; many of the members, including Bill all passed away when the flight crashed. So, when Peterik looked for a name for the new band he was forming in the Chicago area, he named it "Survivor" - because he survived.
Fans of timeless songs like "Eye of the Tiger" are probably glad for that, among others. Peterik truly is an amazing songwriter. While Survivor began to get lost in the sound of the 1985-86 keyboard-washed rock of the era with tunes like "High On You" (a great, great recording nonetheless), you get a feel for Survivor's strong American hard rock sound off of their sophomore release: Premonition.
This recording would be a turning point in the band's career because the third track, Poor Man's Son was heard on the radio by Sylvester Stallone. He wanted them to do a song just like that for his upcoming Rocky sequel. Indeed, you can hear the matching signature phrasing in the key of C; it's just a bit slower.
It is a really good, hard rockin' song with lots of dynamic range and excellent vocals. The song that made me go out and actually by the whole album, though, was the lead-off track "Chevy Nights." I would have loved this song back when I drove my Caprice... Introduced to me through Rocktopia.net's "Aohra Rock" podcast featuring the beautiful Pilar Sanchez, I was loving Stephan Ellis' big round Fender P-bass over Marc Droubay's up-tempo drumline. Then, Frankie Sullivan's crunchy Marshall-amped Gibson finishes out the into before Dave Bickler's vocals kicks it off within the Radio "ramp limit." My favorite part of this song is the chorus. Like much of the album, Jim perfectly composes Stephan and Frankie's lines such that the right chords are formed so even though you're really only hearing a simple drum, bass, guitar combo with some piano accent and Bickler's stellar vocals, it sounds much fuller.
Latter tracks leverage more overdubs to give some melodic range to guitar tracks, but this record doesn't use a whole lot of studio trickery. In fact, I would argue this entire CD is a textbook introduction to how to compose, perform and record rock music. A clean production with understated effects, perfectly mixed and EQ'd serves as a prime example to anyone touching a Pro-Tools install for the first time what tracks SHOULD sound like. You can Hear all the frequencies of the bass strings, all of the timbre of the drumkit's snare... Frankie is not shredding like crazy or overusing mindless barre chords; it's a lot of stuff on the 5th, 4th and 3rd strings, just two or three note chords and lets the amp do the rest. Listen to Droubay's tracks: Rock Steady. Constantly well timed hits; not a lot of crazy fills to try and grab your attention, just naturally attention-grabbing groves and tasteful symbol work.
Finally, let's get into the song writing. Google the lyrics to "Light of a Thousand Smiles." You will seldom listen to a more positive, hopeful piece of writing for a rock song. This song speaks to all of us who've heard our favorite rock song on the radio, and dreamed of the day that we, too, would take the stage and perform in the light of a thousand fans smiling upon us.
On a scale of 1-4 stars, I give it 4 stars. It comes HIGHLY recommended by me, and I really have not been able to stop listening to this whole recording since the day I bought it a few months ago.
Fans of timeless songs like "Eye of the Tiger" are probably glad for that, among others. Peterik truly is an amazing songwriter. While Survivor began to get lost in the sound of the 1985-86 keyboard-washed rock of the era with tunes like "High On You" (a great, great recording nonetheless), you get a feel for Survivor's strong American hard rock sound off of their sophomore release: Premonition.
This recording would be a turning point in the band's career because the third track, Poor Man's Son was heard on the radio by Sylvester Stallone. He wanted them to do a song just like that for his upcoming Rocky sequel. Indeed, you can hear the matching signature phrasing in the key of C; it's just a bit slower.
It is a really good, hard rockin' song with lots of dynamic range and excellent vocals. The song that made me go out and actually by the whole album, though, was the lead-off track "Chevy Nights." I would have loved this song back when I drove my Caprice... Introduced to me through Rocktopia.net's "Aohra Rock" podcast featuring the beautiful Pilar Sanchez, I was loving Stephan Ellis' big round Fender P-bass over Marc Droubay's up-tempo drumline. Then, Frankie Sullivan's crunchy Marshall-amped Gibson finishes out the into before Dave Bickler's vocals kicks it off within the Radio "ramp limit." My favorite part of this song is the chorus. Like much of the album, Jim perfectly composes Stephan and Frankie's lines such that the right chords are formed so even though you're really only hearing a simple drum, bass, guitar combo with some piano accent and Bickler's stellar vocals, it sounds much fuller.
Latter tracks leverage more overdubs to give some melodic range to guitar tracks, but this record doesn't use a whole lot of studio trickery. In fact, I would argue this entire CD is a textbook introduction to how to compose, perform and record rock music. A clean production with understated effects, perfectly mixed and EQ'd serves as a prime example to anyone touching a Pro-Tools install for the first time what tracks SHOULD sound like. You can Hear all the frequencies of the bass strings, all of the timbre of the drumkit's snare... Frankie is not shredding like crazy or overusing mindless barre chords; it's a lot of stuff on the 5th, 4th and 3rd strings, just two or three note chords and lets the amp do the rest. Listen to Droubay's tracks: Rock Steady. Constantly well timed hits; not a lot of crazy fills to try and grab your attention, just naturally attention-grabbing groves and tasteful symbol work.
Finally, let's get into the song writing. Google the lyrics to "Light of a Thousand Smiles." You will seldom listen to a more positive, hopeful piece of writing for a rock song. This song speaks to all of us who've heard our favorite rock song on the radio, and dreamed of the day that we, too, would take the stage and perform in the light of a thousand fans smiling upon us.
On a scale of 1-4 stars, I give it 4 stars. It comes HIGHLY recommended by me, and I really have not been able to stop listening to this whole recording since the day I bought it a few months ago.