NEXT

Another attempt to make Journey hit the charts (it did, but not nearly as high as nor staying there as long as their label expected). On their third album the group musically tries to bring a balance between the jazz rock/fusion style of their debut and the more pop/hard rock second one. In any case, Next is doubtless slightly superior to their sophomore release, Look Into The Future. However, it has its flaws too.

While the songwriting here is an improvement over the uninspired Look Into.... it´s not as strong as it could be. Some people blame the vocal parts, but I don´t agree with that, since Gregg Rolie showed to be a good, if not outstanding, singer. The band even took singing lessons trying to perfect vocal harmonies to help out Rolie (and went even further letting Neil Schon sing on a couple of tracks). Rolie´s problem seems to be on his performances as a keyboards player, since his trademark Hammond solos are nowhere to be found. In fact, all keys are quite subdue on Next, which is a pity. Schon totally dominates the record and it´s the LP´s best feature, along with Aynsley Dunbar´s brilliant drumming. Best songs: the nice opener Spaceman and the very Rush-like instrumental Nickel & Dime.

Next closes this stage of the band´s career showing they had the potential to go very far (which they eventually did), but the final impression is that the group still hasn´t found their true personality nor written the most fitting stuff for them (influences here go from Hendrix and Pink Floyd to Rush and Zeppelin). It would all change in the near future.

Rating: something between 2.5 and 3 stars. Good, but definitely non essential in any way.