LP Review: Journey to the Land Of...Enchantment
Released: 1979
Enter the synthesizers.
Enchantment’s first two albums had been largely devoid of any electronic or synthesized instruments. Well, this album made up for some lost time, I suppose.
The first sounds you hear on the album opener “Future Gonna Get You” are some cheesy (even by 1978 standards) squiggly keyboard noises. It’s like they stole snippets from Billy Preston’s 1973 hit “Space Race”. Anyways, this song is fine light danceable fare. Nothing special.
Things immediately improve on “Magnetic Feel”, which has unobtrusive touches of synthesizers leaving the field wide open for the live instruments to operate, especially a smoky saxophone.
Okay, now that we’ve arrived on the third song (“Anyway You Want It”) it’s time to point out the production quality is lower than the previous two albums. Everything just feels less ambitious than Enchantment’s first two albums.
Another noticeable trend on this album is that EJ Johnson’s distinctive wail is diminished as more group members get co-lead spotlights. This is a good and bad thing.
THE GOOD: The other group members can serve as positive vocal foil as on the monster hit “It’s You That I Need” from the previous LP. They can gently lay forth a path for Johnson to come in later and knock the song out the vocal park.
THE BAD: None of the other group members have Johnson’s vocal power, though, which is clearly evident on “Love Melodies”. That song is entirely given over to a non-Johnson vocalist. (I can’t find info on who is doing the lead singing, hence why I can’t name the exact group member). It’s a gentle bluesy ballad that has a fine backing track, but the lead vocals are a bit too low-key and undercut the song’s potential.
“Oasis of Love” instantly shows that a musical arrangement of equal caliber to “Love Melodies” is elevated by the vocal prowess of Johnson.
Hey! Finally another dance song in “I Wanna Boogie”. It’s good unlike its follow up, the stupid “Fun”. This is the first bad Enchantment song. At least it’s mercifully short (2:29). Another mundane ballad ensues with “Let Me Entertain You”.
The group finally starts to sound ambitious on “Forever More”. It’s a good ballad that has interesting touches of twangy guitar as early 70s Stevie Wonder style synths fly upwards. For all the ambition, the song still doesn’t come quite all the way together.
So that leaves us with the finale, “Where Do We Go from Here/Journey”, as the one ambitious song that does put all the pieces together. Its basic structure is that of a standard 70s R&B ballad.
Don’t let the superficial simplicity mask the ambition, though. EJ Johnson puts on a damn good vocal performance on top of the instrumental arrangement and the soft backing vocals. Just wonderful execution.
The final two minutes are the “Journey” where the band is allowed to do some psychedelic/prog shit akin to Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle”. No singing over that part of the track. Just spacey electronic keyboards, flute, bass, and guitar. Just wonderful ambition at that point.
ALBUM GRADE: C
Welp, a huge step down from their previous LPs—Enchantment (B) and Once Upon A Dream (B+). Only one song is a must-have/must-listen while a few others are nice to spin. The others aren’t the least bit essential and one song is even bad.
And the chart performance rightly reflected this. The album was only #25 R&B and #145 pop, while both singles (“Anyway You Want It” and “Where Do We Go From Here”) flopped with neither cracking the R&B top 25.
Song Scores
Future Gonna Get You: 5/10
Magnetic Feel: 7/10
Anyway You Want It: 6/10
Love Melodies: 6/10
Oasis of Love: 7/10
I Wanna Boogie: 7/10
Fun: 3/10
Let Me Entertain You: 5/10
Forever More: 7/10
Where Do We Go from Here/Journey: 8/10