Description

Double album on black vinyls with gatefold cover

Freedom is Journey’s first studio album in 11 years since their underrated 2011 release Eclipse. Comprising 15 tracks of new music, the band definitely gives fans more than money’s worth in terms of new material. The line-up for Freedom consists of Arnel Pineda (lead vocals), Neal Schon (guitars, backing vocals, keyboards), Jonathan Cain (keyboards, backing vocals), Randy Jackson (bass, backing vocals) and Narada Michael Walden (drums, backing vocals, keyboards). Additional musicians include Jason Derlatka on backing vocala and Deen Castronovo who provides lead vocals on the track After Glow. After the failure of Eclipse, both Neil Schon and Jonathan Cain were quoted saying that they didn’t see any point in creating new music if fans were just going to ignore it. Thankfully their creative juices got flowing again several years later which resulted in 2022’s excellent Freedom. There is quite a bit of variety throughout. The entire band sound fantastic and there is not a single clunker in my opinion. The first half of the album contains a few ballads with the second half rocking noticeably harder overall. Freedom should please most Journey fans. If you can get past the dodgy mix and production, there is a ton of terrific material here that makes it well worth a purchase and listen. Some might feel that the album is too long, but considering that it took this long to get new material from Journey, I say the more the merrier. Highly recommended

Track list:
1. Together We Run
2. Dont Give Up On Us
3. Still Believe In Love
4. You Got The Best Of Me
5. Live To Love Again
6. The Way We Used To Be
7. Come Away With Me
8. After Glow
9. Let It Rain
10. Holdin On
11. All Day All Night
12. Dont Go
13. United We Stand
14. Life Rolls On
15. Beautiful As You Are