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Awesome - the REAL Journey Aug 11, 2009
This album is incredible. This is Journey, uncut, un corporate "prettied up," and raw. This is the pre-Steve Perry/John Cain, Corporate "pretty-boy" rock that everyone's used to from Journey. Every musician on this album is top-notch, and this is an example of what happens when you let top-notch musicians do what they want to do.
This album is organized chaos - jams that first appear to be just jams, but, upon listening again and again, have highly complicated, ingeniously arranged musical nuances that put this band in a class of its own. It's a constant, flowing vascilation from calm, melodic keyboard pieces to all out, insane, full volume Jazz/Rock mayhem. This is progressive rock at its finest, and everyoneplays every songlike it's the last one they'll ever play. This album really cements the original Journey as one of the greatest bands of all time.
Neil's guitar work is absolutely stunning, and Aynsley Dunbar's drumming is incredible. I'm definitely a fan of Steve Smith (who replaced Dunbar on the Evolution album and was with Journey throughout most of their "pop" phase)who is a highly talented Rock (and now Jazz) drummer, but Dunbar's combination of Jazz/hard rock drumming sets him in a class of his own. This is even more apparent on Look Into The Future.
The other "Star" of this album (aside from Neil Schon) is def. Gregg Rollie, who's voice I enjoy more than Steve Perry's often high pitched, whiney tone. He's a talented vocalist but just gets annoying after a while. Steve has an excellent vocal range but his whiney tone and the softie "radio" songs he sings gets old. Gregg's voice are sharp, dark, soulful and cunning, and his non-perfect pitch variations mark the lack of over-perfection/production of this album (reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's first album) that brings about a bad-ass feeling of its own, and his uncut, un-corporate "unregulated" piano/organ playing style is incredible.
Ross Valory, in my opionn one of the industry's best bass players, kicks tail on this album. All throughout the tracks you can hear him distinctly, and he has no trouble keeping up with Aynsley.
George Tickner, the group's short lived rythym guitarist, also lays down some nice chords and helps to add more of a soft "Jazzy" sound, evident in "Of A Lifetime" and "Topaz." However, he is often drowned out by the rest of the band. He would leave the group after this album.
This is definitely an exploration into the world of progressive work, and is indicitave of Journey's true talent/ability. This album says something about the abilities hidden within Valory and Schon (who are still with the band). Making this album even more of a rare gem is that Dunbar would leave (actually be fired) after the release of Infinity and that Gregg Rollie would leave just after the release of Departure (which features the pop smash "Anyway You Want It" as the opening track).
NOT YOUR SISTER'S JOURNEY Aug 06, 2009
someone asked "Where did THIS Journey go?" Well, they went on to become a HUGE commercial success by not doing stuff like this.
I can almost guarantee you that if Journey had continued to follow the path on this disc they would not have achieved the same
commerical success they did.
Hopefully no one takes this the wrong way but all those female fans that embrace songs like Don't Stop Believin' and Faithfully
would not have embraced the Journey on this disc with the same enthusiasm, if at all. Sure, there are vocals on this disc but
there's also some serious jammin' going on, the kind that musicians embrace and other less adventurous fans may not. This Journey
is not everyone's cup of tea. Having said all that this disc is a worthy addition to any rock collection, especially for fans of
progrssive rock. The boys cut loose and throw down. Mr. Schon in particular gets to flex his six string chops. Yeah, this isn't
your sister's Journey, this is big brother's Journey. Dig it!
[...]
Journey not a lot of people are familiar with Apr 25, 2009
When you hear the name "Journey", what do you think of. "Don't Stop Believin'" comes to mind so does "Any Way You Want It" and other personal favorites comes to mind too. But what about songs like "Mystery Mountain" or "To Play Some Music" or the fact that keyboardist Gregg Rollie was the lead vocals? Yes this is their first album entitled
"Journey". Being aware of only the 78-08 Journey, I was a little bit skeptic when I found out about the first three Journey albums, but they're a unique trio of albums and they show the roots of the band. The vocal tracks remind of some of my other favorite bands like the Beatles, The Doors, and The Eagles, especially such songs like "Of A Lifetime" and "To Play Some Music". The instrumental tracks were a standard in the 70s Journey repertoire and personally, I like them. They're have more like a jazzy rock feel to them and they sound very similar to the 70s fusion quintet, Weather Report. Overall, I recommend it to anyone who is interested into hearing Journey's roots. It's very interesting to see this band evolve into the band they are today.
2 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Buy this and the next two Apr 05, 2009
I saw someone who said they only own the first four Journey albums. I owned the first four only briefly. That was until "Infinity" received the door test, which was shortly after buying it and attempting to listen to it. For those of you who aren't familiar with the door test, you take the album (vinyl) or you can do it with a CD. Hold it next to the door frame so that approximately half the album or CD projects into the open doorway. Then slam the door on it as hard as you can. If it survives, it's worth keeping. If it doesn't, well... that's what happened to "Infinity", and I never bought another Journey album after that. I still own the first three.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 A Journey to a place less known Feb 12, 2009
Wow! I'm a big fan of early Journey but, I've never gone back to the beginning. I'm glad I took a chance on this album. It's a lot different than what I thought it would be. Interesting and very progressive. I would almost say it was like a progressive, rock, jazz style that after a few listens grows on you. The more you listen to this, the more you get to appreciate the technicality of the music. It is not the pop oriented Journey that many people are used to. It makes me wonder where this band would have gone if this band line up had continued as it had been on this album. Pretty cool stuff.
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