JOURNEY — Departure (review)

JOURNEY — Departure album cover Album · 1980 · Non-Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
vmagistr
I've been enjoying Journey´s music for years, I even gave them one of my first review attempts fifteen years ago. When it comes to american music, I generally like stuff that has something in common with blues, jazz or metal, and I've never fallen for the sleeker form of their radio rock, but Journey won me over. It might have something to do with the fact that two of the mainstays of the band's early lineups (guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Greg Rollie) had some history with Santana, or maybe it's also that Steve Perry's late seventies/early eighties voice amuses me like only few others in the business.

The common denominator of most of the songs on their sixth studio album, Departure, is Perry's vocals in particular, which soar effortlessly to over-the-top heights and build arching arcs, and Schon's smoky guitar, which, as needed, took care of a wild guitar solo here, a Gary Moore-style flourish there, and an energetic backing track a little further out. Keyboardist Greg Rollie quite often takes hammond organ in action, whose bubbling sound can hardly be matched by any synthesizer in the right arrangement, and in a few cases he also shines with a harmonica - which, by the way, is the third reason why I'm into this album. Also fine are the rich backing vocals, which (except for drummer Smith) were capable all the band members.

Any songs I enjoy? Of the wilder rockers, definitely the hits Any Way You Want It, Line of Fire or Precious Time, the quieter - and all the more composed - stuff like Someday Soon or People and Places is also great. I'm also quite happy with the "drifting" dance-floor stuff in the style of Stay Awhile, on the other hand I could easily do without the sweet melodies in Good Morning Girl. In the riff one-off Where Were You Schon tries to vary the figures that the more commercial of the young British metal bands of the time liked to build on, and in the hit Walks Like a Lady the band goes probably the furthest towards what makes Journey a distinctly American affair.

I've been sort-of friends with Journey's music for most of their career. I enjoy their jazz-rock-smeared beginnings, the turn to more likable rock and the pompous synth period, from the post-union era I was pleased at the time with the Revelation record featuring new voice Arnel Pineda. Then I let them out of my sight for a long time (judging by the wild personnel changes of recent years, the "dictator" role usurped by the last of the founding members, Neal Schon, doesn't exactly suit well to the band), but I love returning to their classic period. I rank the Departure album among the better of the records they made at that time
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