Journey have released “Let It Rain,” the latest track from their upcoming album Freedom.
Though the band is most associated with their arena rock anthems, they switch up their style on the new song. “Let It Rain” is a heavy-handed rocker, boasting a powerful swagger from the opening note.
Guitarist Neal Schon flexes his musical muscles throughout the tune, fueling the song’s dirty groove. Schon opens things up about halfway through the track, letting his guitar squeak and wail through a triumphant solo. Meanwhile, singer Arnel Pineda delivers some of the grimiest vocals of his Journey tenure, displaying a hubris rarely felt on other songs.
Listen to “Let It Rain” below.
“Let It Rain” is the third song unveiled from Freedom, following “You Got the Best of Me” and “The Way We Used to Be.” The upcoming LP will Journey’s be sixteenth studio album and first in more than a decade.
Stylistically, the three songs released thus far have been noticeably different, which aligns with what keyboardist Jonathan Cain told UCR in March.
“We have all the elements,” he explained on the new album. “Some of it’s really raw and really rock ‘n’ roll, and I think we have the classic ballads. We really tried to stay true to what we do best, and that’s just write good songs.”
“There are some surprises,” Cain further admitted. “We step out a little bit, which is cool. … A lot of the jams were kind of free-form, so Neal was working hard and I was there for him, and we worked together through the whole thing. The songs came from all kinds of places, creatively. But I think it’s just a combination of everything Journey has been.”
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Journey have been through their share of incarnations over the past four decades.