journey trial by fire full album youtube

Trial By Fire by Journey

Album Reviews 1996 Albums , 2016 Reviews , Album Reviews by Ric Albano , American Artists , California Artists , Journey 2

Buy Trial by Fire

Following the phenomenal success of 1981’s Escape and Frontiers along with the subsequent major tours, Journey took some extended time off. Lead vocalist Steve Perry released his debut solo album while guitarist Neal Schon participated in the short-lived “super group” HSAS, fronted by Sammy Hagar. Turmoil ensued during the recording of their next album, Raised On Radio in 1986, as bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith were dismissed from the band due to “musical and professional differences”. Although that album was a commercial success, Perry went on an indefinite hiatus, leaving the group in limbo for several years.

In the early 1990s, keyboardist Jonathan Cain joined Schon, Valory and Smith for a series of tribute concerts. This indirectly led to the early 80s lineup of Perry, Schon, Cain, Valory and Smith reuniting in 1995 and recording this new album with producer Kevin Shirley in 1996, making it the first new Journey album in 10 years.

The group’s core members of Perry, Schon and Cain wrote the bulk of the songs on Trial by Fire. One of the few exceptions is the opening “Message Of Love”, which was co-written by lyricist John Bettis . The song swells in with some backwards-masked voices before strong beat-driven, perfectly fine, albeit ultra-ordinary pop song. This is an interesting slight nod back to the 1983 hit “Separate Ways” just prior to Schon’s lead guitar. “One More” starts with a movie-like string arrangement by David Campbell before breaking into Valory’s bass-driven rhythm to accompany Perry’s interesting and slightly dark vocal melody. “When You Love A Woman” is a classic Journey ballad with rocking piano, strategic guitar overtones and soulful/romantic vocals. The song reached the top of the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart as well as becoming a Top 10 hit on the American pop charts, the group’s last such hit to date.

“If He Should Break Your Heart” continues the parade of slick, love-oriented songs and, while the theme is unoriginal, this one takes on a pleasant mellow rock vibe musically. On “Forever In Blue”, the verse music is driven by a spunkier, choppy guitar riff with some fine snare clicks by Smith, For his part, Perry does get a bit soulfully strained as the song goes on, which works to add a bit of authenticity to the sound. Schon provides a wah-wah fused blues guitar between each verse line of “Castles Burning”, along with a later simple but exciting, squeaky rotating riff over the bridge to bring the song to a higher sonic level. This sparks the best sequence on the album with “Don’t Be Down On Me Baby” laid out like a classic Soul ballad with a simple, rotating piano phrase accompanied by Perry’s soaring lead vocals and “Still She Cries” featuring nicely picked guitar motifs in intro sets before the mood settles with steady rhythms throughout this ballad.

Unfortunately, there are many superfluous songs beyond this point. “Colors of the Spirit” does employ world-music inspired sounds through its long, jungle-like intro before unfortunately reverting back to standard fonts for the song proper. “When I Think of You” is, perhaps, the nadir of album as an uninspired ballad, while “Easy to Fall” only works later on with some fine, bluesy/jazz guitar work by Schon. “Can’t Tame the Lion” is a pure rock song that remain upbeat and rocking throughout before the mood is once again brought down with the ballad “It’s Just the Rain”. The title track, “Trial By Fire”, provides welcome relieve by this point of the Goliath-length album as Smith provides some odd beats accompanying Valory’s cool bass and Schon’s jazzy guitar for an overall fine vibe, while the “hidden” “Baby I’m a Leavin’ You” features a heavy Caribbean-influence with musical flourishes and a nice, light way to complete the album.

Trial By Fire reached #3 on the album charts and Journey appeared to be back in top commercial form as they prepared for a subsequent tour> However, Perry injured himself during a hiking, rendering him unable to perform for over a year. By 1998, both Perry and Smith were out of the group and Journey continued as a patchwork band into the new century.

Part of Classic Rock Review’s celebration of 1996 albums.

Related Posts

Album Reviews

Diamonds In the Coal by The Badlees

Street Survivors by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Human Touch & Lucky Town by Bruce Springsteen

Such a shame, would have been an epic tour for that album. It just faded away.

Just like Van Halen should have made a reunion with Roth in 96. What a waste. These bands just like George Lucas are so hard on themselves. They don’t know their own greatness

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

• Hagar Adds Fifth Band Member
• Ten Years After Woodstock Show
• Top 35 Country Rock Songs
• Top 15 '90s Aerosmith Songs
• Hagar: 'No Response' From VH
• 'Mind Games' Reissue Review

When Journey Powered Up for Resurgent ‘Trial by Fire,’ Then Disintegrated

If Journey 's short-lived '90s reunion sounded like a return to form, that was because the work – a lot of it - had finally paid off.

New producer Kevin Shirley put the freshly reformed early-'80s lineup of Neal Schon , Steve Perry , Jonathan Cain , Ross Valory and Steve Smith through a rigorous wood-shedding period in the run up to Trial by Fire . By the time the album arrived on Oct. 22, 1996, Journey was working at a peak pace, able to put down nearly complete song takes live in the studio.

"The real challenge was, I don't think any of us were used to rehearsing as much as we did," Schon tells Ultimate Classic Rock in an exclusive interview. "But it turned out to be a good thing. We rehearsed for a good six weeks. That's a long time. We basically rehearsed everything like we were going to play a brand-new record live, with no overdubs."

In this way, Trial by Fire wasn't just an attempt to recreate the sound this same fivesome once had on 1981's Escape and 1983's Frontiers , but to actually become the band they used to be – interacting live in the studio, trying as best they could to create first-take magic. "There's something to be said about that," Schon adds. "When you have the time to get everybody together like that and rehearse, you get very comfortable with the material, the arrangements."

Shirley has said he wanted to hone Journey back into the well-oiled machine of their original era – when songs were often polished by the biggest groups out on the road, then arrived on albums fully formed. "There are some magical elements that happen with the natural feel of a band," Shirley told the Observer in 2016. "When you start to bring computers into the equation and are cutting things up all night and quantizing things, they can get very generic."

Watch Journey Perform 'When You Love a Woman'

The finished project blended every element of Journey's former chart-dominating formula, making room for arena rockers like "Castles Burning," throwback mid-tempo fare including "Message of Love" and more emotional moments like "Still She Cries." "The writing process was fairly easy and painless, like it always was between Steve, myself and Jonathan," Schon says. "We got together and wrote the tunes, I believe, in a couple of weeks." They also pushed themselves, showcasing newfound musical complexity on songs like "Forever in Blue," and adding a soaring orchestra to "When You Love a Woman" – though, Schon admits, taking so much time sometimes led down dead-end paths.

"The arrangements changed a million times on some songs, I can tell you that," Schon recalls. "That got a little mind-boggling. Like a song like 'When You Love a Woman,' I remember that that arrangement changed about a hundred times. Around the 95th arrangement that came around, I'm like brainwashed. I don't know which one is which. But when we settled in, it was a very good arrangement."

Fans responded, as the Grammy-nominated "When You Love a Woman" helped Trial by Fire to a No. 3 finish on the Billboard chart as Journey earned a million-selling album for the first time in a decade.

It seemed as if they'd finally found their way again, after a lengthy period of internal disagreements that included 1986's Raised on Radio – which found Journey whittled down to just Cain, Perry and Schon, plus a group of sessions aces to round things out – and then a series of less-successful solo projects .

"Individually, none of us made the magic as magically as we collectively make it together," Steve Perry admitted in a 1997 talk with the St. Louis Dispatch . “You start to recognize that some of the things you didn’t even know you had as a group in the music are still there, and you’ve been looking for them for a long time. All you had to do was put your guns down and get back together again.”

Listen to Journey Perform 'Message of Love'

Unfortunately, the energy created by this return-to-form project quickly dissipated when Perry was stricken with a degenerative bone disease and couldn't decide on whether to have hip surgery. His bandmates were left cooling their heels and – as a 2001 episode of VH-1's Behind the Music made abundantly clear – deep fissures returned in the immediate aftermath of Trial by Fire .

“I think the tour was all set to happen [in 1996],” Shirley told the Observer . “They had signed on to do the tour, and then everything fell apart. From what I understand, [manager] Irving [Azoff] took that plan and applied it to the Eagles . They did the Long Road Out of Eden tour, and that catapulted them into mega-superstardom, which is really what the plan for Journey was.”

After all of the time away, the effort in getting Trial by Fire just right and the momentum they'd quickly reestablished, Journey were suddenly starting over again. They didn't return to the road until 1998, and by then Perry had been replaced by Steve Augeri and Smith had resumed his well-respected jazz career.

It took a while to rebuild. Shirley later produced 2001's under-performing Arrival , but Journey wouldn't finally regain its old retail mojo until Augeri's replacement Arnel Pineda came on board for 2008's Revelation , a Shirley-produced album that became the band's first platinum seller since Trial by Fire .

Time also seemed to heal whatever wounds remained from 1996's missed opportunity. "I don't have any hard feelings," Schon says. "You know, we've had our ups and downs, like all bands do – and sometimes it goes from member to member to member. So, I have nothing but a lot of gratitude and respect for everything we've done, and every one that's been involved."

The Best Song From Every Journey Album

You Think You Know Journey?

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

Trial by Fire

STREAM OR BUY:

Release Date

Recording location, discography timeline, allmusic review, user reviews, track listing, similar albums, moods and themes.

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

Album Review

Trial by fire.

Release Date

Record label, performance.

• New Release

Pro-Social Content

“Message of Love” cries out for relational reconciliation. Lead singer Steve Perry pledges to help a woman pick up the pieces of a failed romance (“If He Should Break Your Heart”). Elsewhere, he uses biblical metaphors in a musical prayer for help during a “Trial by Fire,” and condemns shallow faith in God (“Easy to Fall”). While “Don’t Be Down on Me Baby” warns partners not to be critical of one another, “Castles Burning” reminds listeners that the glamor of beauty, fame and passion can be empty. Falling in love is described as “a joy that lasts forever” on the band’s AC radio staple, “When You Love a Woman.”

Objectionable Content

Summary advisory.

Adults familiar with Journey’s ’80s résumé (which includes the hits “Open Arms” and “Who’s Crying Now”) will be impressed with this modern resurrection-one likely to bridge a musical chasm in some homes. A driving sound that’s also lyrically sound. (SEE ALSO: Perry, Steve)

Bob Waliszewski

Latest album reviews.

The Secret of Us

Fathers & Sons

Hit Me Hard and Soft

The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

• Share full article

For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio , a new iOS app available for news subscribers.

• July 11, 2024   •   35:40 72 Hours Inside Biden’s Campaign to Save His Candidacy
• July 10, 2024   •   32:25 Why Britain Just Ended 14 Years of Conservative Rule
• July 9, 2024   •   27:33 The Era of Killer Robots Is Here
• July 8, 2024   •   26:17 The Supreme Court Is Not Done Remaking America
• July 5, 2024   •   26:50 How Bad Is Drinking for You, Really?
• July 4, 2024   •   26:12 Biden’s Slipping Support
• July 3, 2024   •   32:01 The American Journalist on Trial in Russia
• July 2, 2024   •   27:55 Trump Wins Broad Immunity
• July 1, 2024   •   33:39 Will Biden Withdraw?
• June 28, 2024   •   36:42 A Brutal Debate for Biden
• June 27, 2024   •   27:49 The Doping Scandal Rocking the Upcoming Olympics
• June 26, 2024   •   23:27 France’s Far Right at the Gates of Power

Why Britain Just Ended 14 Years of Conservative Rule

Last week, the center-left labour party won the british general election in a landslide..

Hosted by Natalie Kitroeff

Featuring Mark Landler

Produced by Rob Szypko ,  Nina Feldman and Will Reid

Edited by Brendan Klinkenberg

With Paige Cowett

Original music by Dan Powell ,  Diane Wong and Marion Lozano

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

For more than a decade, Britain has been governed by the Conservative Party, which pushed its politics to the right, embracing smaller government and Brexit. Last week, that era officially came to an end.

Mark Landler, the London bureau chief for The Times, explains why British voters rejected the Conservatives and what their defeat means in a world where populism is on the rise.

On today’s episode

Mark Landler , the London bureau chief for The New York Times.

Background reading

Five takeaways from the British general election.

The Conservatives have run Britain for 14 years. How have things changed in that time?

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson, Nina Lassam and Nick Pitman.

Natalie Kitroeff is the Mexico City bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. More about Natalie Kitroeff

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades. More about Mark Landler

Advertisement