3 Stars
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It’s been eleven years since Journey released their last album, Eclipse in 2011, so now we get Freedom released in July 2022.
In the eleven year gap a lot has happened, obviously there has been a pandemic, but the band have been through major court cases with previous long term members Steve Smith and Ross Valory. The court case was settled but it all rather left a bad taste around the band.
Journey started out a four piece featuring Neal Schon after he left the ranks of Santana playing gloriously intricate jazz/rock with hardly any Vocals. Brilliant but hardly commercially viable. I saw them in 1976 at Wembley Arena, London. Not headlining but third on the bill behind Eric Burdon and old boss Santana. They played to hardly a ripple of applause, which was a shame as the music was quite invigorating.
After various lineup changes, the most important of which was replacing Gregg Rolie on keyboards with ex-Baby’s synthesizers-orientated Jonathan Cain, and getting Steve Perry in on lead vocals. With this lineup in place, the band went into the studio to record the album, ‘Escape’ (1981), which included hit singles like the iconic ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’ Both single and album went to number one on the Billboard charts. The band went off and played the universe in multi domes.
After releasing ‘Frontiers’ in 1983 to further acclaim, the band toured again then took a sabbatical. To cut a long story short, the band were never really the same again. They released ‘Raised on Radio’ in 1986, which by any other band’s standards was a huge success, but to Journey only reaching number four in the Billboard charts was seen as a letdown. Tensions between band members and management were high, and constant lineup changes did not help matters. Through various hiatuses the band carried on with only Schon and Cain being constant.
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The band members are now Neal Schon on lead guitar, Jonathan Cain on keyboards, and Arnel Pineda on lead vocals since 2007, Todd Jenson on bass and vocals, with Deen Castronovo on drums and vocals. Jenson and Castronovo were not in the band for the recording of Freedom, so their parts were mostly filled by Narada Michael Walden on drums and Randy Jackson (yes, he of American Idol, but also a long time occasional member of Journey) on bass and vocals. It’s never easy with Journey!
The album ‘Freedom’ has fifteen tracks, clocking in at one hour and fifteen minutes. Cain contributed his songwriting skills to fourteen of the tracks as did Schon, then Walden contributed to thirteen. You can see why old drummer Deen Castronovo was ushered back into the band after taking lead vocals on one track ‘After Glow!’
Opening track ‘Together We Run’ is a rather blatant attempt at an old style Journey commercial track. It has a great rockin’ Schon solo in it, but that is certainly the highlight as the song goes on way to long. Perhaps the band should not have produced this themselves, but gotten an outside producer in to put some prospective on it all. A lot of pruning on the time scale would have been nice.
This whole album could be twenty minutes shorter. ‘Don’t Give up on Us’ is next and to honest is all a bit blah. Then the first ballad ‘Still Believe In Love’ falls flat on its face. But hold hard Everard, fourth track ‘You Got the Best of Me,’ comes beating its way out your speakers, Pineda leading the charge as he belts into the chorus. His singing here is on the punchy side. When Schon takes off mid song this is the Journey we want. So frustrating knowing they can do this, but they make us wait four songs to get rockin’.
The next track is called ‘Live to Love Again!’ Yes, you got it. Another soppy ballad. This one even brings the orchestra in, plus going on too long. Even some great Schon guitar cannot save this bomb.
‘The Way We Used To Be’ is aptly titled as it reeks of an 80’s throwback. Neal Schon taking on the role of Mick Jones from Foreigner on this one. ‘Come Away With Me’ at least has some bluster to it, but goes nowhere, it really sums up Journey at this point, not sure what to do with the music. ‘Afterglow’ is the typical sort of song that the lead singer steps away from, allowing the drummer to come to the front of the stage. Pointless.
‘Let It Rain’ is just a filler, another fine example of how an outside producer could have done wonders. By this time Journey have proved they still have talent, they just seem to have forgotten their direction.
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‘Holdin’ On’ sees a fine vocal performance but the band remain directionless. ‘All Day and All Night’ sees a nice attempt to break out of the Journey mold, at just over three and a half minutes is a better length. Excellent bass playing from Randy Jackson.
But not enough to start pumping the blood through your veins.
‘Don’t Go’ swings the journey (sic) back on track with its driving beat. Showing off Pinenda bouncing round the vocals with the band supplying faultless vocal harmonies. You can feel yourself wanting to drive down the highways with this blaring out your player.
‘United We Stand’ – a bit of a hopeful plea here as the song really flounders, hardly united at all. A real Journey by numbers job, not really going anywhere. ‘Life Rolls On’ should be pure Journey as it’s the sole song written by the duo of Schon and Cain. But life rolls on, as does the song. It takes until one minute and forty five seconds before the guitar makes a rocky contribution, far too long, from there the song meanders like a headless chicken. Neal Schon steps into save the day with a grandstand solo to bring the song to a climax.
Final song ‘Beautiful As You Are’ is simply too long at over seven minutes. It might turn into a good stage number, but this recorded version loses all oomph. Mind you, most will have lost all interest after the hour mark.
Conclusions from this album are that Arnel Pineda is a fine singer in the Steve Perry style. We all know that Neal Schon is a wonderful guitarist. On this album Jonathan Cain’s Keyboards are almost totally anonymous. Journey need to solidify their back line.
do than he had on this album in the future.
Perhaps next time an outside songwriter should be brought in to help get the engine stoked. Certainly a producer to clarify the direction of the band.
For now I’m afraid it’s time to dust off Escape or Frontiers, remembering Journey at their peak, because this isn’t it. No doubt fans of the band will blindly buy the album, but I think this recording will quickly slip to the bottom of the pile.
Live of course Journey have far too much talent to not be supersonic on stage. They have a fine catalogue of former glories as long as they don’t try to slip in too much Freedom.
Written by Mott the Dog
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