I was very happy to see this in a recent BKP care package. With the viability of the new Journey lineup and album and the rock veterans employed and credited on "So U," the bar was set fairly high. And it did not disappoint.
I went back to the log book and found that I own two of his non-Journey records from the 80's, one which co-headlined Jan Hammer. I can honestly admit that I had no idea he had released a half dozen others between then and now. His cohorts here are pedigreed to the max. Marco Mendoza, bassist extraordinaire, first started with Blue Murder and John Sykes in the early 90's and eventually the Thin Lizzy reformation, including the Black Star Riders from last year. He also spent a couple of years with Ted Nugent around the turn of the century. Deen Castonovo has been drumming in Journey for the past 15+ years and was in Bad English with Schon and Jonathan Cain for their two records in '89 and '91. As I scanned the credits, the name Jack Blades appears as cowriter on six of the album's nine tracks. What I didn't find was current Journey vocalist, Arnel Pineda, and I was certain he was on two of the songs, one which would fit squarely on any post-1978 Journey record. Turns out it's Castronovo singing. Well, I'll be damned...
Not the most inspired video setting, huh? Actually, after watching all three "official" videos, they were all shot in front of the same green screen, and I'm guessing on the same day, only the songs, background and attire changed. C'mon, Neil, it's not as if you can't afford it... Maybe he knew deep down that the ROI wasn't going to justify dropping the coin because 75% of this album is more along the lines of pre-Steve Perry Journey, which was when I first discovered the band. It was that fateful Thanksgiving holiday break in 1976 when I was finally offered a chance to do a show on WPRK...actually, it was ALL the shows from Wednesday through Saturday night, five on-air hours per, all on 25 minutes notice and 10 minutes of training. I dropped the needle on the longest track of whatever album I played in an effort to minimize the number of cuing errors and segments featuring dead air. This provided plenty of opportunities in those four fateful days to seriously study EVERY PIECE OF VINYL in the studio. There were two Journey albums, the début and "Look Into The Future," both of which blew my scrambled 18-year-old brain. Might I share a pivotal point in one of those evenings...
While there isn't anything of this caliber on "So U," the same stylings of the three pre-Steve Perry Journey records are apparent, Latin fusion/jazz/rock with some smokin' guitar. Neil was too much rock for Carlos, but it worked for me. As does this album. There is nary a turd in the lot and I made three different notations which all read "This is a very good record." That in itself is what dooms this to the Heatseekers charts and not the upper echelons of the Top 200. It's "too rock" for the legions of "Journey fans" but not for this one...
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