Arrival

rena rock veterans Journey must have felt the pressure to meet and hopefully surpass expectations on their first studio album without Steve Perry. The choice of his successor and what the band could offer without him had been the subjects of arguement and speculation for some time. Journey's ARRIVAL fits the bill comfortably and triumphantly. While it doesn't rock as hard as TRIAL BY FIRE, the songwriting is top notch, and producer Kevin Shirley continues to bring out the best in the bands he works with.
Former Tall Stories/Tyketto vocalist Steve Augeri steps into some very big shoes and delivers emotive, soaring vocals on ballads such as "All the Way" and "All the Things". Rockers "Higher Place" and "We Will Meet Again" are in the minority, but are sure to please long time fans. New drummer Deen Castronovo puts his chops on a leash and shows his ability to be a true ensemble player. An obvious single, "Signs of Life" sounds as close to the Journey spirit as the band can get without Perry, while the smoldering "Kiss Me Softly" shows that the new Journey has a few aces up its collective sleeve.|

Journey was formed originally as a vehicle for Neal Schon's guitar pyrotechnics, but after five years the band sought out a lead singer to give them mainstream pop appeal, and Steve Perry did that, helping them to a string of seven consecutive multi-platinum albums before the band broke up in 1987. A 1996 reunion put them back in the winners' circle with Trial by Fire, but Perry then bowed out for health reasons, putting Journey in the sticky position of recruiting a new lead singer. (Drummer Steve Smith has also been replaced by Deen Castronovo formerly of Bad English.) They chose a soundalike, Steve Augeri, which suggests that they are more concerned with recreating their hits in concert than in making new music. A group of Journey's vintage always risks sounding like a copy band of itself, and Arrival, the first full-length album with Augeri, realizes that danger. The singer doesn't quite have Perry's smooth, flowing tenor, but he's close enough so that much of the time, especially in big arrangements, he can fool you, though at unadorned moments on ballads he sounds different. When he's not singing, the music is even more like Journey, with Schon's soaring leads supported by Jonathan Cain's bright keyboards in typical arena rock arrangements. It's hard to argue that the generalized romantic sentiments that make up the lyrics, here contributed by a variety of people including Augeri and Cain's wife, are any worse than Perry's, but Perry sang his words with more feeling than Augeri does. So, the new Journey turns out to be a half-step back to the old (make that the old, old Journey -- pre-Perry, when Schon ruled). Odds are, that will be a more difficult sell at record stores, though Augeri's similarity to Perry means that the concert revenues shouldn't suffer. ~ William Ruhlmann