Journey 10: Trial By Fire

Steve Perry’s solo album hadn’t made much of an impact, but then again Bad English—Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain’s collaboration with John Waite—didn’t last past a second album, and Neal’s attempt at metal in Hardline was largely ignored. Even the Storm, which featured Gregg Rolie and the spurned rhythm section of Ross Valory and Steve Smith, missed out on success. Yet in an era when the Eagles managed to get back together, the re-emergence of Journey in the studio made sense, at least from a commercial angle. But would they sound any good?

Sure enough, the “classic lineup” that gave us Escape and Frontiers did indeed make an entire album together, which immediately led to Steve’s refusal to tour behind it, and an unintentionally hilarious episode of Behind The Music. The most maddening thing was, by Journey standards, Trial By Fire was pretty good.

Coming in at over an hour, the album shows the three songwriters attempting to straddle all possible worlds associated with the brand, giving equal time to big ballads and riff-heavy rockers. In fact, the first “single” from the album was a double: “Message Of Love” aped enough of “Separate Ways” to make it to classic rock radio, while “When You Love A Woman” was destined to be several couples’ wedding song. They are separated on the album by “One More”, another loud track with top-speed fretwork and nightmarish strings.

From there it’s mostly where they left off on Raised On Radio, but with a more unified sound than the patchwork of that album. “If He Should Break Your Heart” and “Forever In Blue” are typical Perry looks back to the high school crush who still haunts him, seemingly. And just when you think they’ve got the magic back, “Castles Burning” induces a headache sure to last longer than the six minutes it takes to sit through. You’re smarter to hit the skip button for “Don’t Be Down On Me Baby”, a slow apologetic waltz that apparently didn’t take, for all Steve’s got are the memories in “Still She Cries”, and Jonathan slathering the end of the track with John Tesh piano stylings.

Along with new age, so-called “world music” kept instrumentalists busy in the ‘90s between reunion albums, and “Colors Of The Spirit” also shows the influence of The Lion King back then. “When I Think Of You” brings back the romance and the slow dance, even if it does recall the love theme from Major League. Yet if there’s a real winner on the album, it’s “Easy To Fall”, to which the whole band rises: music, lyrics, harmonies, chord changes, key changes, a retro outro, just a great performance, and truly a hidden gem in the catalog. “Can’t Tame The Lion” delivers a final blast of arena rock, with “It’s Just The Rain” (complete with sound effects!) and the title track hobbling to the finish. (As if that wasn’t enough, there was a hidden track after several seconds of silence, the half-baked Sam Cooke reggae homage “Baby I’m A Leaving You”. This was given its own index on the eventual reissue, followed by “I Can See It In Your Eyes”, a surprisingly edgy track previously only included on the Japanese version of the album.)

As head-slappingly silly as it seems sometimes, Trial By Fire remains a much more worthy end to the Steve Perry era of Journey. Whatever legs it might’ve had were undermined by the band’s inactivity, leaving the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Kiss, and countless other “reunited” bands to rake in the box office receipts. The album’s mostly been forgotten; meanwhile, we’re still trying to figure out the significance of the cat lady and the giant baby in the boat on the album cover.

Journey Trial By Fire (1996)—3
2006 CD reissue: same as 1996, plus 1 extra track