ARRIVAL

Time to put on the gloves and go the distance in defense of Journey once again-- the world's trashiest, hammiest, white-trashiest divergence on the road to prog purism. I won't waste anyone time's trying to make the case that Journey is progressive (because we all know they aren't), rather, here's an honest review of this record from someone for whom it was a bit of a revelation at the time of release, and who now rolls his eyes at anything that doesn't feature polyrhythmic virtuosity or mellotrons.

First, Arrival is-- like all Journey albums-- following a by the book template of big arena melodies and schmaltzy ballads centered around Neil Schon's (genuinely) excellent guitar work and high-pitched, smooth, deeply inflected vocals from whomever is behind the mic. Arrival is the first Journey album without Steve Perry, and it is much, much, much stronger because of it. While the band's old hits are deservedly famous in karaoke lounges and classic FM, Perry's vocals were always shrill and ultimately unappealing. Steve Augeri's on the other hand, has everything good that people remember in Perry's voice with none of the nail-on-chalkboard screech that dominated classic albums.

Secondly, Arrival is the only Journey album which features NO #1 hits (big surprise, it's 15 years since their heyday) and NO TASTELESS FILLER! For a band like Journey, this is a big deal-- it means that they actually have to produce worthy songs throughout the album, rather then crank out one hit than phone the rest in. We're actually treated to some creative, energetic, and soulful performances, such as in catchy opener, the uplifting "Signs of Life", the deep bluesy "Livin' to Do", and buoyant "We Will Meet Again". The ballads are about what one would expect, but benefit when compared to predecessors thanks to Augeri's vocals. Schon's guitar features nice, slickly produced and creative solos with some experimental sound effects hidden throughout as well. Big props to new drummer Dean Castronovo; even if he wasn't following in the footsteps of a hack like Steve Smith his performance would be first rate for the genre.

So, whether one is a casual or dedicated fan-- or committed enemy-- of the band Arrival provides a listening experience superior to the majority of the group's releases and is at least equal to their best.

Remember... being a prog lover means that eventually one needs to simply get over their maturity; be sure that pretension doesn't get the best of you, and keeps you from enjoying the saccharine hooks of infectious melody. If you only let yourself get a fix every once and a while-- Arrival is fine album to do it with.

Songwriting: 2 Instrumental Performances: 3 Lyrics/Vocals: 3 Style/Emotion/Replay: 3

Suprissingly nice... a good solid album...

Avoiding the discussion of the Journey haters and lovers... yes, is not prog... yes, is cheesy but hey... did you know Steve Perry is not with them anymore... did you know Neal Schon is a real great guitar player, did you know they have good rocking players a lot better than any soft rock crapy band...??? Yes, this album is quite well... a nice piece of pop-metal hard rock with a contemporary aproach to the delight of rock lovers...

The songs "Higher Place", "Signs of Life", "All the Things", "I got a Reason" "World Gone Wild" and "Nothing comes Close" are really the highlights of the album... hard rock with great chorus and tight compossitions and performance. They sound very 80's with all their recurrent glamour in their voices essambles, but now they use a lot of modern keyboard paths and interesting pedalboard effects that really makes it a lot more modern and fresh... What the people could notice from the start is the strong voice from Steve Augeri, who brings a lot more of life to the songs... Steve Perrys voice is really annoying for me and too cheesy... Augeri have a lot more of interesting performance and strengh and fits really well, specially in their hard rocks parts. Also, you will notice the great performance from an unknown drummer, Dean Castronovo, who really play clean and tight, even live...

For all that reasons, this album should be on check for any rock lover, not just a prog fan... of course, there's a couple of cheesy power ballads that are really their trademark... some are not that bad... even they experiment with spanish guitars more melodic and warm... but at the end I feel the deal is in their strong rock music...

It's a shame that they only record two albums with Augeri... really a shame cause he was a lot more than a copy from Perry but at least they record 15 songs in this album, and that's a lot to enjoy so... take the chance to change your ideas about this mainstream band... trying to rebuild their sound and image... they really made a good effort... 3 stars... only because isn't progressive... in mainstream rock, this is a 5 stars... for sure...!!!

The good point about this release is that the dreadful Perry has disappeared. But I'm not sure that his substitute Steve Augeri is doing better.

Because the overall feeling remains almost the same even if the presence of the mighty Schon is more evident on his "come back" album. Same sort of average AOR "Higher Place", "Signs Of Life", "I Got A Reason", cheesy ballads like "All The Way" or the well named "Loved By You" and the weak "With Your Love", or maybe if you prefer average rock songs on the heavy edge as "All The Things" or "Live And Breathe".

I'm afraid that these songs are a weak indication of the material held in this "Arrival". I am of course nostalgic of their first three albums and I can understand that there is no way to get back to these great times. But the band already missed his first come back with "Raised On The Radio", so why bother with another failure?

The only improvement is that Neal has more occasions to show his great guitar skills (which I discovered in 73 with the fantastic "Santana III"). The major problem of this album is that it also last for over ? seventy five minutes! Quite a challenging work to listen to these 4,500 or so seconds of "music" available on this album.

Now, this album is not a total disaster; but that's only thanks to the superb work from the guitar master. One of the few songs that I can bear is the good rock ballad "Livin' To Do". At least vocals are above average and are a good introduction to the glorious guitar part.

Still, in the midst of all these weak music, there are here and there some hopes: the intro of "World Gone Wild" is quite well balanced, aggressive, powerful and in one word: great. It could have been a great track if it shouldn't have been turned into some sort of heavy pop AOR later on. For sure, the "wildest" and the best offering.

None of the remaining songs are any better than the ones I have outlined. This album could have cut almost in halves and as such could have been considered as average. Don't even dream of a second of prog music during this awfully long album; you won't find any.

I am really doing a huge effort to rate this album with two stars. But I don't know why. Maybe thanks to my deep appreciation for Neal. Yes, that must be it?because the last couple of songs from this album won't turn you into a "Journey" fan for sure ("Nothin' Comes Close" for instance).

My second fave (if I can call it that way) is certainly the upbeat and straight rock "To Be Alive Again". Some good old rock tune with beat, passion and guts. If only there would have been more like this one! Killing guitar solo (but damned short) from the magician again. But the closing "We Will Meet Again" is not magic at all?

If you're a fan of the Steve Perry "legacy sound" JOURNEY (and I'm sure that many of you around here are)... you may have considered checking out the band's post-Perry material.

ARRIVAL is the band's first album after Perry moved on, and it's basically a collection of safe straight-forward melodic Rock... with very little indication that it is actually JOURNEY (and not just another generic act of the genre).

First-- The band (literally) lost its distinctive voice when they lost Steve Perry. Obviously, this challenge was going to be difficult for the band to overcome... but they did find an acceptable replacement in Steve Augeri. Unfortunately, he is just "acceptable"... and for a band whose primary identity was its vocals... "acceptable" is almost unacceptable.

Second-- The overall production of the album reflects the grunge-style trend of the time. So instead of getting BIG choruses, prominent keys, and biting guitar leads... you get grounded vocals, minimal keys and walls of muddied guitar chords.

Regardless of all that-- The songs themselves are not necessarily bad. However, I can't say that a majority of them are very memorable or distinctive in any way either.

Strangely enough, I actually prefer these compositions over the ones used in the band's last Perry-era album TRIAL BY FIRE. If only the two albums' songs were switched. Maybe the combination of Steve Augeri AND a post-grunge sound was simply too much for these tunes.

0 stars on the Prog-ometer

2 stars on the Personal Taste Meter

(For this site, I suppose this regrettably equates to a 1-star rating... although it probably deserves slightly better overall.)

PS: The band's 2008 album REVELATION (with new vocalist Arnel Pineda) manages to come much closer to capturing the band's beloved "legacy sound".

Arrivals and departures

Following the release of fine one off reunion album "Trial by fire", singer Steve Perry declined to participate in a proposed promotional tour, citing a hip injury he incurred while walking in Hawaii. The remaining band members were not prepared to endure the uncertainty of the situation indefinitely, and decided that the time had come to replace Perry. The sole criteria for the replacement vocalist appears to have been to ensure that his voice sounded as similar as possible to that of Perry. In 1998, Steve Augeri was recruited as the new singer.

Despite having previously been sacked by the band, apparently at Perry's behest, drummer Steve Smith concluded that he would not want to be in Journey if Perry was not the lead singer and also left. He was replaced by Deen Castronovo, who had played with Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain in Bad English during Journey's extended hiatus.

It was not however until 2001 that the first album featuring the new band members was recorded and released. As a result of Perry's departure, song writing duties are a little more diverse, but Schon and Cain still contribute the bulk of the workload. A number of the songs are co-written by Jack Blades, co-founder of the AOR supergroup Damn Yankees.

If the opening two tracks are intended to reassure us that nothing has changed, they certainly do so. An up-tempo rock number is followed immediately by a passionate ballad, both featuring a familiar vocal. Augeri's voice is uncannily similar to that of Perry, perhaps slightly lacking in the emotion which Perry could impart, but superb nonetheless. The absence of Perry appears to encourage the other band members to up their contributions, with Schon and Cain imposing their instrumental prowess to a greater extent. That said, this remains primarily a vocal album.

There are occasional nods to the past such as the distinctive guitar motif from "Who's crying now" which reappears on "Signs of life". The blues based "Livin' To Do", which runs to some 6½ minutes, also takes us back to earlier days, the song being the least pop AOR the band have recorded in some years. Something appears to have gone awry on the recording of "World Gone Wild", which has the sound of a poor quality bootleg (on my copy at least)!

The balance of hard rock, melodic rock and ballads is just about right here, the album containing 15 tracks in total and running to over 70 minutes. While there is nothing dynamically new or different about the album, this is a solid addition to the Journey discography which sees the band stating clearly that there is life after Steve Perry.

Journey will generally be known to the general public as that band who made all the cheesy prom ballads and arena-style hard rock staples for the airwaves. With this knowledge, most people are in the dark about the real talent some of their work held. Take a trip back to the humble days of 1975; Journey were just getting their feet wet with a debut that mixed classic hard rock with progressive and fusion-based flourishes. The result was an album that the public doesn't notice much today, much less back then. Two more albums followed in this vein before Steve Perry joined and made the band more commercial.

Now, why am I telling you all this?

Simple: because this specific album takes a bit of a joyride back to the pre-Perry era. Sure, Perry's time with the band is clear with similarly cheesy love ballads (see the awful "All the Way"), but there's a certain feel that makes it stand out quite a bit in Journey's catalog. First of all, rejoice because this kicks the ass of 1996's Trial by Fire! The band sounds much more energized, and while singer Steve Augeri sounds eerily close to our previously mentioned former frontman, he packs a great deal of energy even with the daunting running time of 74 minutes. The rest of the members hold their own as well and create a nice sense of balance by not being overly flashy or low in the mix.

Speaking of balance, the songs are more varied this time around, ranging from fist-pumping hard rock anthems ("Higher Place," "To Be Alive Again"), soft rock ballads ("Loved by You," "Kiss Me Softly") and even some progressive hints ("Livin' To Do," "World Gone Wild"). Also, this album marks a much-needed lack of the horrid adult-contemporary style of the previous album, once again catering back to their old fans. Just one listen to opener "Higher Place" is a sign of a return to the old lively energy that Journey had back in the 80's.

One extremely pleasing quality here is how the band give a little bit of something to multiple generations of fans. The old guitar style and inclusion of Steve Augeri is obviously a way to regroup the old fanbase, while the modern production and shiny polish to the mix screams "2000's". Songs like "Higher Place," "To Be Alive Again" and "We Will Meet Again" certainly work well in this regard, with flourishes of the Perry era and the polished production of modern rock, almost like the band is tapping into The Darkness in some way (albeit with less of that cheeky humor).

Then there are the ballads; what a mixed bag. This slice of the album is where you'll hear some real and unfortunate inconsistency. For instance, "Loved by You" is a fantastic ballad worthy of the old Journey tag, and also adding a slightly folky atmosphere to it ("Livin' To Do" does a similar thing). But then, you hear the song "All the Way". This song is H-O-R-R-E-N-D-O-U-S. Essentially, it's like Journey's prom ballads x10; it ranks up there with "Forever Young," but at least that's a good song. This song takes "corny" to a whole new level. The rest of the ballads follow suit, ranging from bad-to-decent-to-great.

One more gripe is that Steve Augeri, as I said, sounds a bit too much like Steve Perry, and it would really have been nice to hear some more variety in his vocals. It's clear that he's a talented and capable singer, but it'd be great if he adds a few extra things to the table the next time around. Aside from that, things are good the way they are.

Whether you want to purchase this album depends on a simple question: do you like Journey or not? If you don't like Journey, this won't exactly change your mind. However, I think fans of the band will find a bit of a treat in spite of the initial backlash this record received. Arrival is a nice revival of the old classic rock hits and hooks we all knew Journey for, and for some people that just might be enough.

I, like any other Journey fan, I guess, was not prepared to give any chance to an album without the great singer Steve Perry. How could we? Perry , hate him or love him, is a unique singer, had a distinctive voice and was mostly responsible for their mega success after so many years of struggling. Besides, the guy also had a terrific live persona that fired up their shows. So I missed this album and just wanted to forget it all. Even when a friend at the time recommended me their Journey 2001 DVD I did not bother to even take a look at it. And only a few weeks ago I decided to listen to the album since I was really surprised with the high quality of their latter CDs. I figured out that Arrival might also be a good one after all. Needless to say, that proved right.

Ok, this is not a classic. But, boy, is it good! Listening to their back discography one can only be amazed of how those guys never lost their knack for great hooks and melodies, even if radio and press in general have abandoned them a long time ago. Fine, if you don´t like Journey at their heyday, you won´t find anything here to redeemed it. On the other hand, if you do enjoy their classics, than you can do no wrong buying this CD: Steve Algeri may not be as charismatic on stage as Perry, but he does the impossible (or what looked like it): he sounds a lot like Perry without sounding forced or unnatural or a caricature. In fact, he does like a little less passionable version of the former band´s singer, which is fine to me.

While none of the band members lost their great musicianship, the production is sharp and the arrangements are tasteful , nothing could be done without good songs, and Arrival has plenty of them. From the fine opener Higher Place to the final two bonus tracks, we have a selection that are, if not up to their most well known stuff, at least worth more than one quick listen: they all are at least good ones and if you like AOR and ballads like only Journey does, chances are you´re going to like this album very much. I did. They even extend the instrumental parts and at least one song, Livin´to Do, with its bluesy feeling and over 6 minute time reminds me of their early material. In other words, they stick to what they do better and that´s something great, specially nowadays.

Rating: 3,5 stars.