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
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has also been replaced by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
'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
'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
, 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
and
Cain
's wife, are any worse than
's, but
sang his words with more feeling than
does. So, the new
turns out to be a half-step back to the old (make that the old, old
-- pre-
, when
ruled). Odds are, that will be a more difficult sell at record stores, though
's similarity to
means that the concert revenues shouldn't suffer. ~ William Ruhlmann