I do not consider myself a huge fan of the legendary melodic rock band JOURNEY but I do enjoy some of their releases such as; ‘Escape’ (1981), ‘Frontiers’ (1983) and ‘Arrival’ (2001), just to name a few. However ‘Generations’ (2005) didn’t do much for me.
Now JOURNEY is back with a 3 disc release entitled ‘Revelation’. Disc 1 contains 11 new songs (The track “Faith in the Heartland” has already been released on ‘Generations’). Disc 2 contains 11 re-recorded classic tracks and disc 3 is a live DVD from the March 6, 2008 Las Vegas concert marking the first U.S.
public appearance of Journey's current line-up.
I only have disc 1 in my possession so let’s take a quick look at it, shall we? It opens with one hell of a rock song called “Never walk away” and it shows that JOURNEY is the masters when it comes to melodic rock with catchy riffs and catchy sing-a-long choruses. New singer Arnel Pineda is doing a very good job in my opinion so let’s give him a chance shall we? Track 2 is a quite typical JOURNEY-ballad and a quite good one but I’m more into their rock songs and track 3 “Change for the Better” is such a little thing. And a first class one indeed.
JOURNEY maintains a high level all through the first 7 songs but then something happens; Track 8 “What I Needed” offers very little in my humble opinion and so do track 9 “What it Takes to Win”. Too modern for my taste. Track 10 “Turn Down the World tonight” is an okay ballad and the instrumental “The Journey (Revelation)” shows that guitarist Neal Schon knows his way around his instrument. My promo-CD ends with “Let It Take You Back” (Bonus track for Europe). Okay song. Nothing more nothing less.
All in all a quite good album and the future for JOURNEY looks bright again.
