I must confess, I haven’t listened to this album very much. I have the DVD that was produced to promote it and have probably watched it more than I have actually listened to the album. It’s not that Revival is a bad album. By 2001 Petra was down to three members (Bob Hartman, John Schlitt, and Louie Weaver) and found themselves on InPop (the labeled co-founded by Peter Furler). Furler enlisted Jason Halbert and Dwayne Larring (both of Sonicflood fame) to oversee the project. The result was a collection of well-produced collection of praise and worship songs that were popular at the time.
As I sit and listen to Revival while writing this, I am a bit surprised by how much I like it. It’s not that I disliked it in 2001, I just didn’t care. At the time I was playing in my own band. I was also leading worship in church so I actually did some of the same songs on the album. However, I was listening to the original songwriters instead of this album. Petra’s first two worship albums (especially the first one) opened my eyes up to modern worship music. By the time Revival rolled out, I was familiar with the “scene” and it didn’t grab my attention. I do think it has aged well and I may find myself dusting it off from time to time.
That 80s Pastor Dude 