ESCAPE [AKA: E5C4P3]

Who could predict that Gregg Rolie´s substitute would take Journey to even a bigger success than the one they already had since Steve Perry joined the band? Ex Babys keyboards player may not have the same background as Roliés but he showed that he was a force to be reckoned of since the get go, specially at the songwriting department. He simply co-wrote the whole album with Perry and Neal Schon Proving that he was more than just a musician capable of stepping into the shoes of Journey´s founder member. With him the band reached the top spot on the charts and released a classic AOR/melodic rock album.

Ok, there´s very little of progressive music here (the mini epic Mother/Father, with its odd time signatures, different chord progressions and elaborated arrangement is the closest they got from that categorization) and that was never their intention. What they delivered was an album full of inspired, simple rock songs and soulful ballads, all of them benefiting from the technique and talent of the great musicians they all have proved to be several times. I specially point out the tremendous power and creativity of Schon, a very original and underrated guitarist.

With a very good production, excellent tunes with no fillers and an energetic performance of all involved (but mostly from singer extraordinaire Perry) this is clearly one of the best AOR albums ever made and deservedly became their bestselling collection of all original material of their career (more than 9 million albums in the US alone). And like their recent output, this one still sounds brilliant and exciting even after all these years: songs like the iconic Don´t Stop Belivin´, Who´s Crying Now, Still They Ride, Escape and the aforementioned Mother, Father simply show why Journey became king of the genre. Really, no one could dispute their crown at the time.

Rating: if PA was a Melodic rock site, this would surely be a 5 star case, but since it is not and there is so little prog rock cliches involved, a four star is more fitting rating. I still like to listen to this album once in a while between my usual forays into symphonic and other prog genres we love so much.