1. Fain 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
13. It's Never Too Late
The departure of Steve Perry was a great loss for the band. Nevertheless, they proved that their music is still unchanged and strong with their new singer Steve Augeri and the last album. "Arrival" went beyond my expectation, I was really looking forward to the new album when the band announced that they would release one.
At the beginning, it was a dramatic opening with track 1 and 2. These two songs really reassured me how Steve Augeri matched with this band. Then, it goes to track 3, and I posed for a moment. The voice did not sound like Steve Augeri. I checked the notes in the jacket, and Deen Castronovo was credited as a lead singer for the song. I realized each members took lead vocals in at least one song. This album was very irregular. But, I really liked track 3 as well (surprisingly, he did pretty good job on track 13 too). However, the problem was from track 4. After that, the melody lines were not very attractive. The melody has always been their core essence of the sound, but it is very weak in this album. The ballad, track 7, was not bad, yet the album is restrained overall.
The only relief is that Neal Schon's guitar play keeps high tension in this album. But, this album taught me that how vocal melody lines were important for this band. If this is a new band, I would be pretty impressed, but in this band's standard, I have to rank this album low...
☆☆
