Journey is the third and final studio album by British rock band Kingdom Come, known as Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come outside the UK. After the band featured drastically different styles on their first two albums, and after several line-up changes, band leader Arthur Brown worked the band towards a new direction for Journey. The album was the first album in history to use a drum machine responsible for all the percussive sounds on the album. The drum machine in question was the Bentley Rhythm Ace, manufactured by Ace Tone. Although the band had commented the album was entirely based on the drum machine, the band attempted to, in rock and electronic terms, create an album that was the closest they could get "to a string quartet". The album features other experimental techniques, including using a triangle to guide guitar playing and extensive use of Mellotron and synthesizers from new member Victor Peraino, who replaced Michael "Goodge" Harris early on production.
The album was recorded in November 1972 in Rockfield Studios and released in 1973 by Polydor Records. The album was not a popular release, although has gone on to be regarded as a groundbreaking and innovative album that was ahead of its time. Although overlooked upon release, it has received generally positive retrospective reviews from critics. Alan Holmes of Freq said that "Journey was so far ahead of its time that you have to keep checking the sleeve to make sure that it really does say 1973 and not 1983" and that the album was "not only Arthur Brown’s masterpiece, but also one of the truly great albums of the seventies."
Background and recording
After the collapse of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in 1969, when keyboardist Vincent Crane and drummer Carl Palmer left to eventually form Atomic Rooster, band leader Arthur Brown worked with a varied group of musicians on projects called Strangelands, Puddletown Express, and (briefly) the Captain Beefheart-influenced Rustic Hinge, and eventually founded Kingdom Come in 1970, chiefly including guitarist Andy Dalby, who was the only consistent member after Brown himself. The band recorded their debut album Galactic Zoo Dossier in 1971 and their sophomore release Kingdom Come in 1972, but by the end of the 1972, the band's line up had changed drastically several times over, at that point featuring vocalist Brown, guitarist and vocalist Andy Dalby, bassist, percussionist and vocalist Phil Shutt, and synthesiser/keyboard player Michael "Goodge" Harris.
Although their first two albums featured drastically different styles, Brown and the band decided their third album would mark another drastic change of direction, conceiving an album to feature a drum machine due to their lack of drummer. The band entered Rockfield Studios, Monmouthshire in November 1972. The sessions began with Dennis Taylor supervising proceedings, but he only recorded two songs with them, being replaced by former Love Sculpture guitarist Dave Edmunds, who according to Brown was "more than keen to work on an experimental project". Mixing the album was completed in December 1972. As with the band's previous albums, they took acid during production, and Goodge decided to leave the band because of this. Victor Peraino was his replacement, who was into "sonic sensibilities and recording structures." Brown stated in an interview at the time that band's three albums were intended to present a thematic progression, with their debut focusing on the state of humankind in the present, the second on the human animal itself and the dichotomy between the body and mind, and Journey focused on cosmic and spiritual matters. He saw Journey as the final album in the series, completing a trilogy.