Generations (2005)
1. Faith in the Heartland
2. The Place in Your Heart
3. A Better Life
4. Every Generation
5. Butterfly (She Flies Alone)
6. Believe
7. Knowing That You Love Me
8. Out of Harms Way
9. In Self Defense
10.Better Together
11.Gone Crazy
12.Beyond the Clouds
Following the relatively solid if overly cautious Arrival, Journey’s 2005 outing Generations marked a bold attempt to shift gears—or at least to tinker with the machinery. Having been dropped by their label after the commercial inertia of their previous work (despite its earnest attempt to replicate past glories), the band turned to the internet with the low-key, experimental EP Red 13, before eventually landing a modest new deal to continue recording. The result? A record that aims for reinvention, but lands closer to identity crisis.
The problem with Generations isn’t that it tries something new; it’s that it tries everything. Somewhere between democratic exercise and unfocused experiment, the band decided that each member should take a turn at lead vocals. Conceptually intriguing, practically unwise. The most successful of these turns comes from drummer Deen Castronovo, whose Perry-tinged timbre suits the band’s classic sound. Jonathan Cain, too, handles Every Generation with more confidence than one might expect, though the song itself—like much of the material here—simply doesn’t rise to the occasion.
Where things truly unravel is with the contributions from Neal Schon and Ross Valory. In Self Defense and Gone Crazy, respectively, are stylistic outliers that feel more like homages to ZZ Top and Van Halen than anything in Journey’s established musical lexicon. It’s not the genre-hopping that offends—it’s that the songs aren’t particularly good. If the band had managed to graft quality onto the stylistic wanderings, this might have been an album of unexpected delight. Instead, it’s a collection of well-produced, competently performed tracks that rarely leave an impression.
And that’s part of the tragedy. The production is pristine—meticulously assembled, with every guitar line, vocal layer, and drum pattern polished to a reflective sheen. But it feels curiously vacant, as though the producer spent more time shaping the sonic surface than asking whether the material underneath was worth hearing again. The songs are long—relentlessly so. Five-and-a-half minutes becomes the norm, which, for a band known for three-minute radio anthems, is the wrong kind of evolution. Midway through the album, one checks the tracklist with dread, only to realize the ride is far from over.
And yet, buried deep in this sprawl are moments of redemption. Faith in the Heartland opens the album with promise—an epic, swelling track that harks back to what Journey once did best. Even better is Beyond the Clouds, a late-album highlight that’s tragically positioned too far down the running order for many listeners to discover. By the time it arrives, even the most devoted fan may have mentally checked out.
Unsurprisingly, the album did little to revive the band’s fortunes. They were dropped from their label yet again, and vocalist Steve Augeri would soon be followed by two more replacements in quick succession. Fortunately, lessons were learned. Their next outing would see a return to more familiar sonic territory—and, with it, some much-needed critical and fan goodwill.
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