Apart from being a Christian act playing mid-eighties AOR, the particularity of BATTLECRY is their origin: the most recent of the 50 U.S. States, Hawaii. Anyway, the band commanded by singer Doug Morris moved to California and not only made a strong following among religious circles but also from secular audiences.
Recorded and released independently, their now hard to find sole release "Red White And Blue" from 1985 incudes some lovable AOR tunes with a strong keyboard presence, nice melodies and good choruses.
You have marching tracks such as the Aviator-like title track "Red White And Blue" or the Journey-esque "Life With The Lord" plenty of synth fills and Neal Schon influenced guitar playing.
More Melodic Rock / radio oriented is the sweet hookline in "Power And Might", while the classic mid-tempo AOR styling of "You've Got To Know" somehow reminds me Steve Overland's Wildlife or early FM.
"When The Lord Comes Back" is the weakest track with some poppy Allies smell, but "Not Tough Enough" recaptures the melodic energy via cool guitar licks, swirling keys and easy choruses.
As you can read in the song titles lyrics are clearly religiously focused, but that does not bother at all. Songwriting is little naive at places, however these guy's musicianship - and the gurl playing keyboards - is very good, as well production.
"Red White And Blue" only was released on MiniLP & cassette (which includes some unnecessary live tracks poorly recorded) and although a vinyl-rip is profusely spread in the blogosphere, it features lots of scratchs and clicks.
This is a fresh rip courtesy of my friend Robert P. (thanks mate), cleaned and restored by me.
A very nice slice of mid-'80s AOR.
01 - Red White And Blue
02 - When The Lord Comes Back
03 - Not Tough Enough
04 - Life With The Lord
05 - Power And Might
06 - You've Got To Know
Doug Morris - Lead Vocals, Guitar
Dave Chumchal - Lead Vocals, Keyboards, Guitar
Robert Giverink - Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals
Mariko Martinez - Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Ronald P. Simmons - Bass, Backing Vocals
Bret Kik Keys - Drums
BATTLECRY restored audio
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Friday, September 27, 2013
BATTLECRY - Red White And Blue (1985) restored audio
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5 Comments:
Hi Camel, a bit late but thanks for your nice email a while back!
Just wanted to say that I have this Battlecry + 4 extra live tracks.
Cheers, Bo
You're welcome Bo.
Honestly, I didn't liked the live tracks sound, that's because aren't included here.
O.k. you'll have the same version as me then (there are various floating around). This is the best rip @320.
Best,
Bo
Another interesting note regarding this review, the song "When the Lord Comes Back" ended up being our only top 40 hit on orange county's largest radio station KYMS and led to our singer being discovered by one of the top producers in Christian music at that time. This in turn led to him quitting Battlecry to start a solo career after recording the nationwide radio jingle song "Turn to Me", which was aired at Christian radio stations across the US.
It's probably no surprise that almost all of the original surviving band members are still active musicians today. Singer Doug is still rockin at clubs in the Orange County area. Bob and Mariko raised three musician children and Bob is lead guitarist for Vinyl Ride (an 80's cover band). I've also spent many years leading worship teams and Bob and I now play for The Fathers House, based in Vacaville.
Forgot to mention also that all of the band members are originally from Southern California, not Hawaii. Drummer Bret sadly passed away a few years ago, but the rest of us still reside in CA.
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