Frontiers

Frontiers is the eighth album, following the masterpiece Escape, on which, around Steve Perry’s soaring voice, Jonathan Cain’s vivid keyboards and Neal Schon’s hard guitar draw a large scene. While inheriting the previous album’s tremendous success, it slightly strengthens a harder, more powerful rock color. The songs, while refined, have the rhythm section’s sure drive firmly carrying the sound forward. From the power of the opening speeding classic “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” to the warm, deep emotion of the moving ballad “Faithfully,” the album fully shows Journey’s wide, rich expression, while the lyricism of “Send Her My Love,” the momentum of “Chain Reaction” and a cut like “After the Fall” convey the work’s fullness. The synthesizer riff of “Separate Ways” became an era-symbolizing presence. A record that can be called a very representative work of arena rock, supporting melody that resounds powerfully in large venues with sure playing. Even following the masterpiece Escape, without lowering its quality in the least, it powerfully continues the band’s fulfilling period. Producing two eternal classics, “Faithfully” and “Separate Ways,” it is an extremely polished, engaging masterpiece — a record that powerfully symbolizes Journey’s golden age.