JOURNEY REVELATION

JOURNEY - REVELATION

Disk 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56:27
1) Never Walk Away . . . . . . . . . . . 4:19
2) Like A Sunshower . . . . . . . . . . . 4:30
3) Change For The Better . . . . . . . . 5:53
4) Wildest Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5:02
5) Faith In The Heartland . . . . . . . . .6:18
6) After All These Years . . . . . . . . . 4:11
7) Where Did I Lose Your Love . . . . .5:02
8) What I Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5:28
9) What It Takes To Win . . . . . . . . . 5:24
10) Turn Down The World Tonight . . . 4:56
11) The Journey (Revelation) . . . . . . 5:25

Journey's official website at:
www.journeymusic.com

Disk 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48:44
1) Only The Young . . . . . . . . . . 4:14
2) Don't Stop Believin' . . . . . . . . 4:56
3) Wheel In The Sky . . . . . . . . . . 5:02
4) Faithfully . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4:47
5) Any Way You Want It . . . . . . . 3:25
6) Who's Crying Now . . . . . . . . . . 5:15
7) Separate Ways . . . . . . . . . . . . 5:28
8) Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3:17
9) Open Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3:23
10) Be Good To Yourself . . . . . . . .4:29
11) Stone In Love . . . . . . . . . . . . .4:28

DVD . . . . . . . . .
Live concert: Theatre for the Performing Arts,
Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas, March 2008

Line-up:
Neal Schon: guitars, vocals • Ross Valory: bass, vocals • Jonathan Cain: keyboards, guitars, vocals • Deen Castronovo: drums, percussion, vocals • Arnel Pineda: lead vocals
format: Double CD with bonus DVD - digipak • Nomota #4506-2 • release date: June 2008

Okay so Journey might fall in the vaguely proggish for some, but to many prog fans, Journey's early roots are firmly planted in progressive rock. After a few positive reviews read about this new Journey album, I dedided to take the plunge and buy this latest release from a favorite band of mine in the 80's, that I sadly had long forgotten since the early 90's. An interesting package, and an odd offer it is... this album is only available at Wal Mart, and get this, a beautiful digipak album containing two full CDs and a DVD, with great artwork in the vein of the classic early 80's disks and a nice 12-page booklet. Surely an expensive box set? On the contrary! For what's included in that package, at the cost of $11.88 at Wal Mart, it's an amazing value! For the nostalgic late 70's/80's era fans, it's a surprisingly good live performance on the DVD, and for the real fans who followed the band through thick and thin, I have to say that the new material is surprisingly powerful, a bit retro and reminiscent of the best Journey material from Steve Perry's epoch.

Disk 1 contains all the new material, which varies from the peppy arena rock numbers to the smooth ballads, very much inspired from the best years of the band from the late 70's with Evolution and Departure, to the mid-80's with Frontiers and Raised on Radio. New lead singer of the band, Arnel Pineda's voice is truly amazing, it's a bit eerie to have someone sound so close to Steve Perry, Journey's frontman from 1977 to 1998. Although Steve Augeri and Jeff Scott Soto were more than adequate lead singers, Arnel is spot on and I feel his arrival might be the winning combination for Journey's succesful comeback under the spotlights. From the first note of Never Walk Away, you instantly recognize the sound and the style that made this band famous. There are some solid, radio-friendly tracks on that album like Change for the Better, you'll find also some cool driving music like Wildest Dreams, as well as melodic ballads like After All These Years and What I Needed. The closing track, The Journey (Revelation) is an atmospheric instrumental number that concludes the album splendidly. A lovely surprise I have to admit, and probably the album I would most highly recommend to Journey fans since Frontiers or Escape.

Disk 2 is a surprising offer from the band, as they decided to take eleven of their greatest hits and completely re-record them with Arnel Pineda on vocals. On one hand, it's fascinating to hear the new treatment offered to these classics and the sound quality is great, however it is a bit eerie to hear these tracks reproduced so closely to the originals, some people might find this disk unnecessary, but I like it, it would have been fun if the band decided to rearrange some of the compositions to give them a fresh new sound and rhythm, and they could have avoided the fadeouts at the end of some of the songs like Only The Young, Anyway You Want It and Stone In Love and give us real endings like what they did on Don't Stop Believin'. Still, this disk is very listenable and does offer a bit of a new sound on certain of the tracks.

The third disk is a DVD featuring a performance captured at the Theatre for the Performing Arts, Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas in March 2008. The DVD has a beautiful 5.1 digital audio mix... On some of the tracks at the beginning of the show, the band members just seem to go through the motion and you have a vague karaoke feeling from the new singer Arnel Pineda but then you have a tune like Lights, where Arnel's perfect vocals just gives you chills... The DVD contains mostly Perry era classics, with a few new compositions. It is great to see that the core team of the band is still in fine shape, and that Schon, Valory and Cain haven't lost one iota of their musicianship and showmanship, the performance itself is precise, and gets more energetic and intense as the show progresses. Cain is quite impressive on the grand piano, leading to an emotional version of Open Arms (what can I say, I'm a sucker for cheesy Journey ballads). The new material sounds great and actually comes out as some of the most dynamic and exuberant parts of the concert. The show really hits its stride on tracks like Separate Ways. Visually, it's a nicely filmed performance with some great live shots. The sound is fine in stereo, but really stands out in 5.1. The performance is nearly flawless, and varies from very dynamic and energetic to a bit static at times... tracks like Don't Stop Believing have a bit of that karaoke feeling, but you can't expect ballads to be as visually intense as the rockier tunes of Journey's catalogue. Production quality is quite good, and for a bonus DVD in such an inexpensive package, I expected much less, so I was pleasantly surprised by this unexpected gem. No bonus material on the DVD though, just the show.

Overall, this latest effort of the band is truly essential to any Journey fan, casual fans will like the new album and the nostalgic might rekindle with Journey as it is very similar to the sound and energy of the golden years of the band. Highly recommended not only for the quality of the new material, but also for all the added bonus material and the extremely budget-friendly price.

My rating for Revelation : 8.7/10(album reviewed by Robert Dansereau © 04/07/2008. All Rights reserved)