REO Speedwagon delivered their 15th studio album,
Find Your Own Way Home, 11 years after Building the Bridge. Given the band's slow drift into adult contemporary pop in the late '80s, it's a bit of surprise that this album rocks as hard as it does, opening with the strident rocker "Smilin' in the End," where
Kevin Cronin doesn't sound anything like himself. It's an odd, disarming way to begin the record, and instead of proving the exception to the rule, it provides the touchstone for
Find Your Own Way Home. Sure, on the next two songs -- "Find Your Own Way Home" and "I Needed to Fall" -- the group moves back toward the anthemic rock and power ballads that made them AOR staples in the '80s, but this doesn't have the gloss of their records from the late '80s and '90s. This is harder, punchier, the sound of a band that wants to reconnect with the rock band that played arenas in the '70s. This re-emphasis on rock suits the band now, not only because
Cronin's voice is rougher and more gravelly than it was, but also because they sound stripped back to their basics. The band does sound as lean as a group of mainstream '70s rock veterans can -- the production isn't gritty, it's clean and punchy, but that fits with their past -- and they sound looser than they have in years, even succumbing to the pleasures of boogie rock on "Run Away Baby." If not all the songs are as memorable as this fun throwaway, not to mention their classic rock hits from the '70s and '80s, they're nevertheless stronger and harder than anything they've done in the last 20 years, and they provide a good vehicle to showcase this re-energized, back-to-basics lineup of
REO Speedwagon. And while that may not be enough to win back the legions who haven't paid attention since either
Hi Infidelity or 1985's "Can't Fight This Feeling," those hardcore fans who have kept the fire burning over the years will welcome this album warmly if not quite enthusiastically. [
Find Your Own Way Home was originally available only through a retail agreement with Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, which sold it as part of a three-disc set including a CD featuring a live version of
Hi Infidelity in its entirety (entitled Hi Infidelity: Then Again...Live) plus a DVD of a live unplugged show. In April 2007, it was released on its own as a single-disc album.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine