Artist: Journey
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2008
Rating: 4/5
Journey. A band people love to lock horns over, every time it drops an album or a new singer joins the lineup. The material they made in the eighties with Perry on vocals is too perfect, too influential, too inspiring, and for a layman who’s only just discovering the band it’s thrilling at every turn, so there’s simply no way around it. They’re AOR, and you won’t find anything more authentic than Journey in that genre. They staked out everything in it and served up a perfection that no band in the genre has topped since. Since the genre lived out its days in the eighties, no band can top them anymore, either. They’re simply among the pioneers of rock.
On to “Revelations”. They pulled it off nicely. It’s retro and it isn’t. Journey walk a cunning line between the old catalog and new tricks. The guys are seasoned old tomcats. They stay true to the tradition of remarkable multilayeredness that their catalog offers. Maybe it feels like Journey just “rewrote” the new tracks a bit from the old ones and dressed them up in a new production outfit. The only smart move when writing Journey-style is to keep the perfection and never stray from it. Trump cards like the ones laid in your cradle don’t get squandered. And Journey know it. At their mature age they’re not losing their marbles like some of their peers, who litter the scene with failed experiments that are (usually) the fruit of a midlife crisis. Nope, Journey don’t know that syndrome. And this time it’s the worshippers of the band’s Perry-era who have the most to look forward to. The album opens with Never Walk Away, a typically “Journey-esque,” positive-minded rocker whose chorus doesn’t hide its same-haircut resemblance to Be Good To Yourself (“Raised On Radio”, 1986). Journey keep showing off their rock polish from there, especially on the standout Change For The Better, then Wildest Dreams, which is maybe even the most “toxically” wound-up rocker on the record, with a proper “Frontiers” feel, or on the typical Journey love tragedy Where Did I Loose Your Love. Also interesting is the re-recorded version of the “Generations” track Faith In The Heartland, which Journey included once more on the album “Revelation”. Why they decided to add it to the new album’s tracklist isn’t totally clear to me. Atmospherically it complements the album excellently and it’s slotted into the sequence quite fittingly. Pineda shines in it too with his approach, but once we compare the production of the two versions, the new one, Shirley’s, wins hands down.
With this batch of songs, Journey once again drew from all the arsenals of their rich musical erudition. The tracks are fully finished, compact, extremely listenable, constantly chasing the most ideal melodic combinations and, most importantly, each one is a recognizable, well-built story and a self-contained whole. But don’t let it slip your mind that the songwriting here is Journey “eighties” continuity. Not a single inch of deviation. Jonathan Cain’s keyboards are one of the key building blocks this time, and a real “Escape” in creating the feeling that the magic of eighties Journey is watching over us.
Newcomer Arnell Pineda, who sang in one of the Journey “tribute to” bands before joining, is a lottery-winning bullseye for all the potential thrills his singing sets off, which irreversibly bring back to life the magic of the band with Perry on vocals. Tonally he’s fully compatible with the classic Journey approach and successfully chases Perry’s range. In the calmer transitional parts and ballads you can of course tell he doesn’t have the subtle depth, softness and sensuality of Steve Perry’s one-of-a-kind voice, even though Like A Sunshower, the first of three ballads in all, a waltz draped in a light veil of bluesy twists, is a great example of how Pineda can get totally close to Steve Perry in timbre and in the way he accents and finishes verses. However you slice it, Pineda is an excellent choice for Journey, and the songs glow with his contribution at incredible intensity, without which Journey wouldn’t be Journey this time either. The guy also surprises by not necessarily riding the rails of good old Perry. A prime, typical example is the ninth track What It Takes To Win. In this dark rocker Pineda comes in with lower-pitched singing, to which he adds a raspy mask, conjuring a totally unique atmosphere not just on the song but on the whole album. The song is dark largely because of how Pineda’s vocal track is tuned. So Pineda is generally a very good Perry “replacement” who can at the same time have his own recognizable singing style.
The energy Journey shake out this time sketches the full potency of the golden era of “Frontiers” or “Escape”, even though Kevin Shirley breathed a modern production stamp into this album. The album breathes intensely, feels as if it were played live, maybe precisely because of the heavily emphasized tonal contrasts between the individual members of the band, and generally the rhythm section itself brought exceptional dynamic drive, especially the colorful drumming and the obviously extraordinary inspiration that seized Deen Castranova during the recording of this album. Schon is standard. Which for him means above-standard. He mustn’t be any different, otherwise we couldn’t talk about the continuity of classic Journey this time either. A guy who belongs to the very top of rock guitarists, among the rare ones with probably the most refined sense of sophistication in guitar tone and the most refined sense for rationally placing individual guitar figures, embellishments and solos that float freely above the chassis of motifs.
Ultimately, “Revelation” is a cautious album. It offers nothing shockingly new as far as the band’s own evolution goes. It’s an album that seeks the favor of fans, of traditional Perry-era Journey. And “Revelation” takes from that tradition with finesse, but at the same time it’s far livelier in production and, on top of that, an album with incredibly clear production. A great album that leaves “Generations” far behind in its red thread and firm focus and brings Journey close again to the fantastic “Arrival”. Time will tell if it can top “Arrival” too. It’s an album that fans of the band must have at home. It’s also an album that everyone who doesn’t know Journey yet can safely start discovering the band with. I have one more wish, guys. Finally launch a proper European tour already!
What I don’t quite get is why the guys added to the release of “Revelation” an extra CD with newly played versions of old classics, because Pineda proves he filled the Perry gap in the band superbly already with the new material, so he needs no further confirmation. The guys will say they of course had to rehearse the old tracks with Pineda on vocals, and then it seemed worth it to blah, blah, blah… Ultimately the move is welcome for those of you who don’t know the band yet, to get acquainted with the older material too, which is by no means better than the originals with Perry on vocals.
Lineup
Arnel Pineda – vocals
Neal Schon – guitar
Jonathan Cain – keyboards
Ross Valory – bass guitar
Deen Castronovo – drums
Production
Kevin Shirley
Track list
CD 1.:
1. Never Walk Away
2. Like A Sunshower
3. Change For The Better
4. Wildest Dream
5. Faith In The Heartland
6. After All These Years
7. Where Did I Lose Your Love
8. What I Needed
9. What It Takes To Win
10. Turn Down The World Tonight
11. The Journey (Revelation)
12. Let It Take You Back (bonus track for the European market only)
Album length: 56.27
CD 2.:
1. Only The Young
2. Don’t Stop Believin’
3. Wheel In The Sky
4. Faithfully
5. Any Way You Want It
6. Who’s Crying Now
7. Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
8. Lights
9. Open Arms
10. Be Good To Yourself
11. Stone In Love
