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 – PREMONITION (1981)

At the time of the original release of Survivor’s second studio album Premonition, the band had yet to really break through to mainstream success. That would still be a couple of years away when they would write and record the “Eye of the Tiger” song that made that internationally famous.

But with the songs the band crafted for Premonition, you could clearly see them giving more definition to their hook laden melodic hard rock sound. With keyboardist Jim Peterik and guitarist Frankie Sullivan co-writing six of the album’s eight tracks (Peterik wrote the other two songs himself), their musical partnership was just coming into its own in full.

The album would reach #82 on the album chart but I think it is still one of the band’s more underrated releases.

The album had two singles released and while neither was a huge hit, the song “Poor Man’s Son” did break into the Top 40 at #33. And I don’t mind saying that for me, this is the album’s best track. With a story that talks about a woman choosing a guy whose prospects in life aren’t all that guaranteed, this is a monster track. There’s a massive hook to the chorus and the music is a full on explosion that sees the hard rock guitar part of the band’s sound perfectly combined with the keyboard driven part perfectly. And Dave Bickler just lets it rip during his performance. The guitar work is killer throughout.

The album’s other single was the song “Summer Nights”. It rose to #62 on the singles chart. There’s a brief flourish musically in the song’s intro but the music recedes a bit and there’s a slower tempo throughout the main lyrical portions of the song. The song’s chorus kicks up the speed and intensity but it doesn’t really go for broke in terms of a speedy rocker track over the first half of the song. As the song progresses through its run time, the soundtrack grows to include a much more full and “big” sound. And you can clearly hear the sense of wistful nostalgia that is threaded throughout the song’s lyrics.

Both of those songs are on Side One of the album but the track that actually kicks off the album in rousing fashion is “Chevy Nights”. It’s got a killer guitar riff that plays throughout the song and the drumming from Marc Droubay provides a solid thump from which the rest of the music builds upon. The vocals from Dave Bickler start off a little sedate in the initial verse but once you get to the first chorus, there is a far more impassioned and driving delivery to his performance that really draws you into the song. It’s actually a damn fine song that I always get a bit of a kickstart from whenever I hear the song.

The final song on the album’s first side is “Runway Lights”. The song’s opening does initially make you think that the track might be a ballad, but you are quickly disabused of that notion as the rousing rock and roll sound almost immediately burns through that opening and you get treated to a thumping rocker that combines top notch music and yet another impassioned tale with Bickler inhabiting the role of someone coming home after time away and hoping that the people left behind will still be there for them.

The second side of the album opens up with the song “Take You on a Saturday”. Coming down on the “rocker” side of the musical ledger, what really made this song for me was realizing just how much I liked the guitar solo in the song. Don’t get me wrong, the song is pretty damn good as a whole, but as I was listening to the album for this article, I was surprised at just how cool I thought the solo was. That’s not something I was really expecting to discover after more than four decades of listening to an album.

For some reason, when I first got my hands on the cassette copy of the album, I found that I liked the song “Light of a Thousand Smiles” just for the title alone. But once I heard the song itself, it became something really special to me as the song’s lyrics kind of remind me of what I used to dream about as I was growing up and thought I wanted to be a musical artist (despite the lack of any semblance of musical talent whatsoever). So whenever I listen to the Premonition album and this song comes on, I am taken back to that time for a few minutes. Plus, the song is just freaking cool!

The song “Love Is on My Side” has a rollicking soundtrack right from the start. The guitar work is the fuel for the fast moving rocker. And there’s hardly time to catch your breath as the band runs through the song without letting up for a minute until the sharp ending.

The album’s closing track “Heart’s a Lonely Hunter” is the longest one on the Premonition album at a little over five minutes long. Clearly not intended as a three-and-a-half minute radio hit, you get to spend a litte more time wrapped up in the music on this one.

The song kicks off with a layered vocal featuring a number of the band members in an opening that definitely establishes a mood before Dave Bickler’s solo vocal take brings the song into more focus. The song’s slower tempo continues through nearly the first two minutes of the track before the vocals become almost a shout (though still under clear control) and feeds into a guitar solo.

The one thing I’ve always felt bad about is that I discovered Survivor well after the Premonition album originally came out. Because I really enjoy it and I wish I’d been able to enjoy it for the extra two years or so that I could’ve had if I’d known about the band and the album before “Eye of the Tiger”.

The Premonition album may not be Survivor’s most successful release but if you pass this album by, you are missing out on (however underrappreciated) some of the band’s finest work.

NOTES OF INTEREST – While the Premonition album was released in October of 1981 in the US, it didn’t come out in the rest of the world until February 1982.

This was the first album that used the cursive script logo of the band’s name. Daryl Dragon (aka The Captain from The Captain & Tenille pop group) is listed on the album’s Wikipedia page as having provided “additional keyboards”.

The album got a CD reissue via Rock Candy Records in 2010. While there was an essay and rare photos of the band from the period of the album’s release, there wasn’t any bonus material. However, there was a song called “Missing Persons” that was recorded for Premonition but it never made the cut. I found a demo of the track on Youtube and gave it a listen. It’s not a bad song but in all honesty, I can see why it didn’t make the album. The demo clearly shows that while Survivor had some good ideas with the song, it really did feel a bit unfinished as a song. It didn’t quite flow as well as the songs that did make the Premonition album. I will say that Frankie Sullivan’s guitar solo was pretty damn good though.