Freedom Review

[Andrew]

https://melodicrock.com/2022/07/02/jour ... view-2022/

[Aaron]

I read the review this morning, nice job Mac. I enjoyed your review, I hope I enjoy the record as much as you.

I've not had the pleasure of listening to entire record but I have heard a couple of songs. I have to say I agree with you, the mix is TERRIBLE. WTF is Roy Thomas Baker when you need him? I'm not sure I can get passed the poor mix. Hopefully the record won't be as bad as the two songs I've heard! I'm not sure what they were thinking here on the mix. Any ideas?

[JourneyHard]

From your review, it sounds like this album rocks. It also has ballads and more, but the number of times you mentioned Hardline has me excited.

Aside from your review, I am afraid to tell people about Journey's new album because it always ends up with them saying, "But Steve Perry isn't on it!" However, it isn't Neal and Jon's fault. They would love Perry to be on it. And how come nobody ever mentions Steve Perry has never had a number one hit song with or without Journey? However, Neal and Jon had a number one song with Bad English.

[Journey/Survivor]

I am afraid to tell people about Journey's new album because it always ends up with them saying, "But Steve Perry isn't on it!"

Just tell them the truth that at this time Journey are far better with Arnel Pineda than with Steve Perry as he is today!

If we could have 1981 Steve Perry in 2022 Journey, awesome! But in 2022 Journey are far better off with Pineda or Augeri or Castronovo or Chalfant singing than they would be with Perry!

[Journey/Survivor]

On Wednesday the 6th on the TV show "The List" they were mentioning Journey having a new album called Freedom that will be released on the 8th. They showed a clip of Journey performing on stage and some guy was saying that it sounded like traditional Journey.

[danielb]

I've not had the pleasure of listening to entire record but I have heard a couple of songs. I have to say I agree with you, the mix is TERRIBLE. WTF is Roy Thomas Baker when you need him? I'm not sure I can get passed the poor mix. Hopefully the record won't be as bad as the two songs I've heard! I'm not sure what they were thinking here on the mix. Any ideas?

Freedom is the least cohesive Journey album to date, with a down right terrible production/mix. The album is all over the place and not in a good way. It makes Generations sound focused.

On most of the record it's hard to make out what Arnel is singing about, for starters. It's obvious he doesn't "feel" the lyrics and it's a major problem. It's just one cliche after another. Don't they have any quality control in place?

This is even more alarming than the poor mix and it makes the songs go in one ear and out the other.

It's also down to the (lack of) arrangement in many of these songs. Again, all over the place.

Maybe an outside producer could have helped them address some of these issues?

[jestor92]

I hope the album is as good as Andrew’s review. I fear that the released songs prove my thoughts that it’s a bad album. I also fear there are certain artists that can record themselves taking a crap for 50 minutes and get an 85% or higher rating by Andrew and Journey being one of them.

[yulog]

"Still believe in love "sounds like it came off of "Dream after Dream", you can even hear the very close similarities in guitar work from a couple of songs on that album

[Eric]

Andrew - anyway to merge the Freedom review threads into one? Would be cool to have one thread for all of our reviews and comments.

(No disrespect meant to anyone posting in multiple.)

[LtVanish]

I'm liking this album a lot from the first listen and although not mixed great, it isn't as bad sounding as I originally thought from the earlier singles released. Maybe just having new Journey music is good enough for me I don't know. I'm not going to complain any longer.