TERRA NOVA – Escape

It has been a long time since fans have heard the brothers Hendrix and their project Terra Nova. Frontiers Records managed to entice the band into releasing a new disc. Escape sees the light of day six years after Make My Day, and the band has kept the same formula that saw them rise with moderate success through the 1990s.

When you read the track listing for Escape, you may think Terra Nova has followed so many artists today by releasing a collection of cover songs. Def Leppard is doing it, as did Duran Duran, Helloween, and even Metallica. It would make sense for a band to throw some cover songs together for a quick buck. However, that is not the road Terra Nova chose to take; they have only borrowed titles from hit songs and then written original music and lyrics. Ultimately, the cover tunes disc would have been a better formula.

The first track, “Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll,” is a hard title to improve. The original work, of course, came from Dio-era Rainbow, and is still a staple in Dio’s live set. Terra Nova thinks Rock ‘N’ Roll should live long as a sappy Pop-infused song that makes bands like Europe and Firehouse sound heavy! After you shudder through that disaster, track two weasels in with its carousel keyboards and thin guitar. Oh, the pain and misery of hitting “Rock Bottom” is apparently as glum as an amusement park ride for children.

“Hold the Line” is the third track. At this point, if you are sure it isn’t going to be Toto’s classic; you would be right. You might also be thinking that if holding this line has anything to do with helping this band, you will not opt to hold said line. There are a lot of songs out there with the next song title, “Heaven Knows.” Deep down, you know before this track even starts that it is going to suck.

There are three more familiar titles: “Sole Survivor,” “Lonely is the Night,” and “Yesterday,” and still no hope for a decent song among them. The disc swells with predictable keyboard enhancements, and every overplayed Pop Rock power chord ever strummed. Generic melodies support the typical lyric fare, all fattened up with the big “gang” vocal harmonies. Desmond Child would be proud that his Pop formula has been so copied twenty years after the fact.

In the end, the disc can be summarized best by track ten “Back in the Eighties.” The chorus sings “Those were the best years of my life …” That is all one needs to really know. Fred Hendrix loved that 80s Pop/Hair Metal, and has chosen to write music that only sticks to that formula. From song titles to guitar riffs to lyrics, there isn’t one moment of this disc that has any originality.