ASIA

In the "desolate" of early the 80's, the announcement of a new "supergroup" with Steve Howe , Geofrey Downes (both ex YES menbers), Carl Palmer (ex EL&Palmer) and Jonh Wetton (ex King Crimsom, Uriah Heep etc... ) created to me a great expectation. I remember my first contact with ASIA when I hear in a FM radio one of the best tracks from this first album "Time Again" and I suspect instantly as the first compass of the introduction of the music due the "roar" from gongs and "frenetic" scales from guitar and keyboards that they arrived. I stayed very impressed by this track and soon buy the LP, but the first audition was somewhat boring, mainly due the strong impression in the first contact. After some new auditions I could understand the band proposition; made a more accessible and commercial progressive rock . The final result is a fusion of pop-music and progressive rock (giving biggest space to pop-music), a very good example are the first track "Heat of the moment", where the progressive "touch" is limited into the brief "interlude" in the middle of the music and the track 2 "Only Time Will Tell" with the keyboards overture and the guitar's reply and nothing more... Beside this neglect the album have another tracks with some much more progressive moments like in track 6 "Wildest Dreams" (with Howe and Palmer's great exhibition)" and track 7 "Without You" a great ballad. Due to this considerations my rate is 3 stars !!!