ESCAPE [AKA: E5C4P3]

I can imagine that any fan of progressive rock will dismiss this album for many different reasons and I would completely agree with that opinion since Escape (or E5C4P3) is entirely void of anything remotely progressive on it. After all, the album dates back to the early '80s when the AOR-genre had just reached it's peak and this is one of the highlights that it had to offer.

I bought this album because I was going to see Journey at Sweden Rock Festival 2006 and was embarrassed for not having heard any of Journey's albums. Since I'm not a big fan of compilation albums I thought that I couldn't go wrong buying one of the most sold albums of all time and that's how I ended up with a copy of Escape. Aside from the two biggest hits the rest of the album has that extremely dated '80s sound that I personally never liked. So overall it's a good collection of very dated songs that may work pretty well at an '80s-themed party.

The live show experience was surprisingly pleasant thanks to the very enthusiastic audience crowd who were happy about pretty much anything the band offered them and I happened to recognize some of the material as well. It was only later that I found out that Steve Augeri used pre-recorded vocals during that show due to problems with his voice at the time, but it doesn't feel like that much of a big deal especially since I never had any particularly big expectations on their performance.

Although it's selling records I would hesitate playing Escape anywhere near a fan of complex music arrangements unless they were preparing for a night out on the dance-floor. Even then I doubt that a Journey album would be first on the menu.

***** star songs: Don't Stop Believing (4:10) Open Arms (3:18)

**** star songs: Stone In Love (4:25) Mother, Father (5:28)

*** star songs: Keep On Runnin' (3:39) Still They Ride (3:49) Escape (5:16) Lay It Down (4:13) Dead Or Alive (3:20)

** star songs: Who's Crying Now (5:01)

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