Artist: Survivor
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2006
Rating: 3/5
They’ve survived, 18 years after their last studio album. Survivor, that is. The forever-hot Eye Of The Tiger, one of the songs that has probably been used most often as a soundtrack, whether for films of typical American invincibility (“Rocky”) or for ads that just need a tiger to show up on TV somewhere. So, welcome back, survivors. “Reach” is proof that Survivor have aged “normally” and quietly, with no big upheavals. Just like, I hope, their fans have.
“Too Hot To Sleep” (1988) was an album of polished production, sharp, forward-pushed melodic guitars, a truly hot, scorching melodic hard rock record, an album of honed edges. The cover, if you still remember it, had a red-hot sunset sky. The cover of “Reach” is its complete opposite. A clearing at sunrise somewhere high in the mountains, when you’ve just poked your head out of a tent pitched by a glacial lake, glanced toward the clearing, and been overwhelmed by the grandeur of the mountains around you. When your gaze and your thoughts reach out and touch the clearing.
The two faces of the band, the eighties one and today’s, are just as different. “Reach” is an album the band members got together in the studio to make for their own enjoyment, without any lofty expectations, while the rebelliousness and the hunger of youthful wildness from “Too Hot To Sleep” have vanished completely. The flirting with pop and the softer side of rock is more obvious than ever in their career. The album doesn’t have a single track with the potential of their typical “eighties” hits, one with a simple, punchy, penetrating riff that grabs you by the throat from the first second. What’s more, there isn’t even one typical fast smasher on it. Everything revolves around mid-tempo to ballad waters, and so “Reach” is really of interest only to the band’s devoted fans. Survivor take a more sophisticated approach, their sense for expressing emotion has matured, and Jimi Jamison delivers the most impressive vocals of his Survivor career on this album. The album is innovative for Survivor especially on the acoustic side, where the band shines with the song I Don’t. The album has a liveliness of production like none before it. The songs are on equal footing, with one detour in the sixth track, Gimmie The World, which is AOR fantasy of the kind a fan of the genre can only dream of, and the highlight of the record.
So the album is nice, and its songs are polished, both sonically and as compositions, by the standards we expect from Survivor. Those standards are high, and the band meets them with veteran ease. Of course, its predictability, repetitiveness and occasional pathos get in the way, which is often the sore spot of the American approach to melodic “hard rock”. Repetitive in the choruses, repetitive in the skeleton of the songs themselves. That’s why it falls short on dynamics and variety. Still, I can say that the guys’ maturity has brought plenty of positives, the ones I’ve already mentioned. Survivor are putting out their least swaggering album, the one with the least arrogance so far. The most down-to-earth, the least pompous, despite the band’s typical “pomp”, if you get what I’m trying to say. Survivor remain recognizable, but they dance around softer sounds, brimming with totally positive energy, and you can tell the guys are well provided for, with none of them complaining about their social standing. Truly an album written strictly for the fans of the band who have made it to today with them.
Lineup
Jimi Jamison – vocals
Frankie Sullivan – guitar, vocals
Chris Grove – keyboards
Barry Dunaway – bass guitar
Marc Droubay – drums
Production
Survivor
Tracklist
1. Reach
2. Fire Makes Steel
3. Nevertheless
4. Seconds Away
5. One More Chance
6. Gimmie The Word
7. The Rhythm Of Your Heart
8. I Don’t
9. Half Of My Heart
10. Talkin’ ‘Bout Love
11. Don’t Give Up
12. Home
Album length: 53:58
