I've got a long and complicated history with Petra.
When I was just a wee lad, More Power To Ya had just been released, and my dad got the cassette. I'd heard "Stand Up" played in children's church one Sunday morning, and it was exciting. I was only 6 years old when the album came out, so I hadn't been exposed to a lot of music outside of what records we had in our house, what I had heard on the radio when in the car, or what was being pumped through the PA system at our local swimming club. So hearing rock music that glorified God wasn't exactly groundbreaking or against the grain for me . . . it just made sense.
Petra became one of my favorite bands, and we played that album in the cassette player of our crappy Oldsmobile diesel station wagon more times than I can count (I still have that cassette, actually). When Beat The System came out, my love of the band was further cemented. While some bemoaned the immense increase in keyboard and programming noise, I absolutely loved their sound, their arrangements, and the wisdom of Scripture present in their lyrics. Nearly every song was its own Bible study.
I got my hands on practically every album by them that I could. Beyond Belief blew me away, Unseen Power only upped the bar of excellence for rock bands, and No Doubt was a solid album that I think got a bad rap from critics.
I didn't snatch up Not of This World until I was in high school, however, and what I found was a problematic album. "The weird one", some of my friends called it, was a sidestep from their previous album, but it took some chances. The overall problem with it is that the songs are so uneven that it almost sounds like it should be a collection of B-sides and other ideas. I mean, we don't have anything as out of place as "I Can Be Friends with You" was on Never Say Die, but that's kind of the problem. Not of This World was the musical equivalent of a band being on antidepressants—a lot of mediocre songs were left after all the highs and lows were stripped away . . . I take that back, not ALL the highs.
"Grave Robber" bucked the trend of that album, and stands out as one of Petra's best songs, full stop.
If ever a song about our hope as Christians had a forerunner, I believe it would be this song. Sandy Patti's "We Shall Behold Him" was the GMA's little darling song for a spell, but when you get tired of fully orchestrated songs that sound like they belong in musicals (I honestly don't even know how that got started in CCM, but whatever), you needed some rock to bring you back down to earth. Not only is the hope that we have in Christ—knowing that someday we will be with Him in all of His glory—extolled in this song, but it also is a song of triumph, a song of the love of God having total power over death.
And in the reunion of joy, we will see
Death will be swallowed in sweet victory
Where is the sting
Tell me, where is the bite?
When the grave robber comes like a thief in the night
Where is the victory?
Where is the prize?
When the grave robber comes and death finally dies
Musically, the instrumentation sounds a little dated, but the arrangement of the song keeps the listener on the edge. Beginning with a minor-key motif, the song talks about our inevitable confrontation with death, a step that we must all take at some point. The music is almost mournfully mysterious, but the mood takes a turn turns in the pre-chorus with a rising climb into major-key territory, resolving in the chorus in majestic fashion, and sounding the melody in a rousing manner.
Simultaneously an undeniably identifiable Petra song and a song that doesn't sound like the typical Petra fare, "Grave Robber" was an achievement the band would only come close to a few other times in their career. Given that they released no less than 10 more studio albums after Not of This World, that's no small feat.
For previous entries in this series, look here:
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #21
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #20
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #19
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #18
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #17
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #16
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #15
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #14
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - Honorable Mention
There Is No Box.
Zach
When I was just a wee lad, More Power To Ya had just been released, and my dad got the cassette. I'd heard "Stand Up" played in children's church one Sunday morning, and it was exciting. I was only 6 years old when the album came out, so I hadn't been exposed to a lot of music outside of what records we had in our house, what I had heard on the radio when in the car, or what was being pumped through the PA system at our local swimming club. So hearing rock music that glorified God wasn't exactly groundbreaking or against the grain for me . . . it just made sense.
Petra became one of my favorite bands, and we played that album in the cassette player of our crappy Oldsmobile diesel station wagon more times than I can count (I still have that cassette, actually). When Beat The System came out, my love of the band was further cemented. While some bemoaned the immense increase in keyboard and programming noise, I absolutely loved their sound, their arrangements, and the wisdom of Scripture present in their lyrics. Nearly every song was its own Bible study.
I got my hands on practically every album by them that I could. Beyond Belief blew me away, Unseen Power only upped the bar of excellence for rock bands, and No Doubt was a solid album that I think got a bad rap from critics.
I didn't snatch up Not of This World until I was in high school, however, and what I found was a problematic album. "The weird one", some of my friends called it, was a sidestep from their previous album, but it took some chances. The overall problem with it is that the songs are so uneven that it almost sounds like it should be a collection of B-sides and other ideas. I mean, we don't have anything as out of place as "I Can Be Friends with You" was on Never Say Die, but that's kind of the problem. Not of This World was the musical equivalent of a band being on antidepressants—a lot of mediocre songs were left after all the highs and lows were stripped away . . . I take that back, not ALL the highs.
"Grave Robber" bucked the trend of that album, and stands out as one of Petra's best songs, full stop.
If ever a song about our hope as Christians had a forerunner, I believe it would be this song. Sandy Patti's "We Shall Behold Him" was the GMA's little darling song for a spell, but when you get tired of fully orchestrated songs that sound like they belong in musicals (I honestly don't even know how that got started in CCM, but whatever), you needed some rock to bring you back down to earth. Not only is the hope that we have in Christ—knowing that someday we will be with Him in all of His glory—extolled in this song, but it also is a song of triumph, a song of the love of God having total power over death.
And in the reunion of joy, we will see
Death will be swallowed in sweet victory
Where is the sting
Tell me, where is the bite?
When the grave robber comes like a thief in the night
Where is the victory?
Where is the prize?
When the grave robber comes and death finally dies
Musically, the instrumentation sounds a little dated, but the arrangement of the song keeps the listener on the edge. Beginning with a minor-key motif, the song talks about our inevitable confrontation with death, a step that we must all take at some point. The music is almost mournfully mysterious, but the mood takes a turn turns in the pre-chorus with a rising climb into major-key territory, resolving in the chorus in majestic fashion, and sounding the melody in a rousing manner.
Simultaneously an undeniably identifiable Petra song and a song that doesn't sound like the typical Petra fare, "Grave Robber" was an achievement the band would only come close to a few other times in their career. Given that they released no less than 10 more studio albums after Not of This World, that's no small feat.
For previous entries in this series, look here:
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #21
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #20
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #19
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #18
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #17
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #16
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #15
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - #14
Top CCM Songs of the 1980s - Honorable Mention
There Is No Box.
Zach
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