Arrival\

Arrival is the eleventh studio album by the American rock band Journey, released in the United States in 2001. A version with one substituted song was released in Japan in 2000. The album was the band's first full-length studio album with new lead vocalist Steve Augeri, who replaced the better-known frontman Steve Perry, and with Deen Castronovo, who replaced Steve Smith as the band's drummer. In the release, many tracks had hard rock and progressive rock influences akin to the band's material from the 1980s and early 1990s, with the album also having several ballads focused around relationships. Frontman Augeri's vocal work retained a closely similar sound to that of the aforementioned Perry. While somewhat commercially successful, the album reaching the #12 spot on Billboard's Top Internet Albums chart, Arrival ended up receiving mixed critical reviews.

The Vintage Caravan are a mystery. »Arrival«, the third full-length from this Icelandic trio implies a maturity worthy of any band that has been on the road for some decades and enjoyed their share of smoked-filled seedy backstage rooms reeking of stale beer. A relaxed rocker like ‘Winter Queen’, with its perfectly-timed build-up and meticulous solos speaks of a long-experienced songwriter worth his salt. The blues-soaked ‘Monolith’ is as cleverly assembled as the percussion-driven heavyweight ‘Last Day Of Light’ or the shapeshifting semi-ballad, half-groove monster ‘Eclipsed’, or the whirling psychedelic trip offered by ‘Babylon’. The hand of a masterful composer can clearly be seen at work in each and every of the diverse songs featured on »Arrival« combined with a rare musicality on the instrumental and vocal side that can easily match those rock giants of the 70's. Yet that hand belongs to a kid or rather kids barely out of their teens.