By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

SURVIVOR – WHEN SECONDS COUNT (1986)

In 1986, when I was still too young to have a license, Survivor released their sixth studio album When Seconds Count. As luck would have it, their subsequent tour included a stop at a venue I could get to…if I could convince my father to take me. With him not being a rock music fan, this wasn’t all that easy to finagle.

But he knew I wanted to see the band and while I’d seen a country music act in concert before, this would be my first rock concert. So, two tickets were purchased and off we went. I remember that I had a Chicago Bears baseball hat and was wearing that because the band’s hometown was in fact Chicago, Illinois. In my completely naive thinking, I thought maybe that would get me somewhere so that I could maybe meet them or something. I also brought a camera so I could take photos and I still have them to this day. Not that they are very good shots but still, I’ve got live photos from the one and only time I saw the band in concert.

But before the tale of that concert continues, what about the music? Well, much like the majority of Survivor’s first seven albums, When Seconds Count is a standard bearer for the best of what the melodic rock (then called pop rock, I believe) had to offer. Great hooks, big choruses, exciting uptemp rock songs and powerful ballads. Add in a powerhouse dynamic singer like Jimi Jamison and it is no surprise that I was so eager to get my hands on the album. While I was in well into my heavy metal awakening by this point in 1986, Survivor was still one of my favorite bands.

The album opens with “How Much Love”, the first of three singles that were released to promote the album. The strange thing is that despite it having a high energy driving tempo and an incredible melodic hook, the song didn’t do much on the singles chart. It’s too bad too because it is a fantastic song in total and really gets you pumped up as the album opener.

The next song is “Keep It Right Here” and it starts off more like a ballad with a keyboard intro from Jim Peterik with only spare instrumentation to go along with it. The opening portion of the song is more about Jimi Jamsion’s vocals setting the stage for more of a dramatic presentation of the song. But as the song progresses, things grow more upbeat and at one point, the song bursts out in full force as Jamison cuts loose vocally.

The song “Is This Love” was the first single from the album and it was the only one that actually charted. It ended up reaching #9 on the charts and the article I read said it was the last Top 10 hit for the band. The song’s title could give the impression that this is a ballad track but instead, the music is rocking right from the start. The keyboards and guitars blend together perfectly. And I like the way Jamison’s vocals are shown to be both melodically soaring at times and then there’s more of a gritty vibe to other parts of his performance.

Now, if you want your first taste of a ballad, you have to check out the song “Man Against The World”. While it didn’t chart as When Seconds Count’s third solo, I have always loved this song and think of it as one of my personal favorites on the album. It starts off slow with that hook-filled piano/keyboard sound. But as with most power ballads, the song grows far more intense and the slow delivery picks up and becomes far more in-your-face for the majority of the track’s run time. The bridge for the song is killer as well.

The first side of the album closes out with the song “Rebel Son” and back when I was dumb enough to think I was “a rebel” (spoiler alert, really not the case), I loved the title and the song as a whole even if the lyrics might not be a perfect fit for my delusions of being a grand rebel. Like a couple other songs on the first side, the song starts out slow with just a smattering of music, led by the keyboards. But then like being shot out of a cannon, the music explodes out of your speakers and you find yourself treated to one hell of a great rock track!

Before we get on to Side Two of the album, I should get back to telling you a bit more about that concert I attended. If I remember correctly, the opening act was a keyboardist named Steve Mullen. I do remember that I liked his set and I think I met him after he finished. I tried looking him up online but I can’t be sure if I have the right guy or not.

Anyway, then Survivor came on stage and man it was fantastic. Well, for me anyway. At one point, my dad took a break and went outside the venue. When he came back, some seats had opened up as people moved around. And that’s when drummer Marc Droubay tossed a drumstick in my direction. It landed in my dad’s seat. Or rather where his original seat was. When he came back, he had moved over a couple of seats and it just landed in the empty seat where someone else was faster than me at grabbing it.

ARGGGGH! I can’t pretend I was mad or anything it was just funny considering how I like to get stuff like that when I go to concerts nowadays. But hey, I got my Survivor T-shirt at the merch stand so I was happy regardless.

Survivor’s show was fantastic as the band ran through a slew of hits and teenage me was having a ball. And then came the encore…which I’ll talk about after Side Two of the album!

I’ve always wondered how the song “Oceans” came into being. If I ever meet Jim Peterik, I’ll have to ask him that. Not that it isn’t a damn good song, but it has always struck me as being a bit different than the other songs on the album. It’s got a great little sound and it is not quite as keyboard-heavy as other songs, so maybe that’s why it seems so markedly different to me.

The album’s title track is an absolute killer track! While the song’s uptempo throughout (at times it has a nice thump to it thanks to bassist Stephan Ellis and drummer Marc Droubay), the main lyrical passages are just slightly slower in delivery than the chorus. When said chorus kicks in, you can hear that extra heft infused into the band’s performance. Plus I love the line, “Funny how you speak of forever / Only to wind up restless and bored” a lot. I don’t presume to know how other Survivor fans feel about this song but I would’ve loved to see this song as a single. It’s another of my personal favorites.

“Backstreet Love Affair” features that slightly slower start that ramps up to something more akin to a full on rock and roll track. Peterik’s keyboards feature a lot on this song and there’s one part of his playing that I really found myself drawn to as I listened to it for this article.

As for “In Good Faith”, it is a power ballad of the first order. Initially fueled by Peterik’s keyboard playing and that more dramatic vocal presentation from Jamison, the “ballad” gives way to the “power” for the song’s chorus. Survivor always seemed to have the ability to write great ballads back in the day but the best way to know how good this song is will be realizing just how well it holds up more than thirty-five years later.

The album closes out with the song “Can’t Let You Go”. And it is gritty little number. It opens with a cool sounding guitar riff and then goes on to deliver a great dose of rock and roll. Jamison’s vocals have more of a gritty tone to them which I think helps give the song a different edge. And Frankie Sullivan’s guitar work is excellent. If I’d been able to see the band more than once, this would’ve been a song I would’ve been very excited to hear if it had been included in the set list.

Oh about that encore, I’m sure you can imagine what song the band saved until then. Yes, big surprise, it was “Eye of the Tiger”. And the crowd actually left their seats to get closer to the in-the-round stage. Eventually I worked my way down as well. I ended up getting close enough that when Jimi Jamison was in front of me, he looked down and gave me a high five. I pretended that it was because he saw the Bears hat on me even though he wasn’t from there. Still it was SO COOL for teenage me at my first rock concert to get that high five of acknowledgement from Jamison.

So as you might’ve guessed long before now, I remain a staunch fan of Survivor’s music to this day. And the myriad of reasons why are amply demonstrated on the When Seconds Count album. I play this album a lot and each time I do, it just brings me joy as I listen to each song. I can’t think of a better endorsement than that.

NOTES OF INTEREST: Here’s something I didn’t know until I started looking up information for this article online: Along with other albums from Survivor’s catalog, When Seconds Count went out of print for a brief time in 2009. However, the band’s catalog was then reissued and remastered by Rock Candy Records. The Rock Candy edition contains the song “Burning Heart” as a bonus track. It was originally released on the Rocky IV movie soundtrack. As a single, the track peaked at #2 on the Billboard chart.

While there were only three singles released in the U.S., a fourth song (“In Good Faith”) was apparently released as a single in Germany.

Since he was brought in late in the process for the previous album Vital Signs, singer Jimi Jamison had no writing credits on that album. But for When Seconds Count, he co-wrote four of the songs with Survivor’s main writing team of keyboardist Jim Peterik and guitarist Frankie Sullivan.

Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw is credited with providing backing vocals on When Seconds Count.