Metal Reviews

Playing Sweden Rock Festival

Educate me.

Asia is the largest and most populous region or continent depending on the definition. It is traditionally defined as part of the landmass of Africa-Eurasia lying east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. About 60% of the world's human population lives in Asia, of whom only 2% live in the northern and interior half (Siberia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, western Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan); the other 98% live in the remaining half.

Oh, Eyesore, you're such a lovable little smartass.

OK, from what little I know of the band, here goes:

Decent rock band with a slight prog edge.

Best album is the self titled debut.

Comprised of a former members of: King Crimson, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and Yes.

However, I believe the current alignment is sans John Wetton of King Crimson, so I can't vouch for the new singer.

Look up smartass in the dictionary and you will see Eyesore's avatar and name

Asia is a good prog/rock band both Asia and Alpha are their best albums.

Hahaha. Fine, Asia are a good prog band, early stuff is better. I'm far from an expert, though.

:roll: The worst part is I expected that and didn't re-word it to avoid the inevitable.

Thanks for the info guys, I'll go check out the two albums mentioned.

Aqua is probably the Asia album with the heaviest guitars (John Payne on vocals). There are a handful of power ballads, but this is actually is pretty good hard rock album. After this album, I really lost interest.

As for the early John Wetton material, I prefer Astra over the s/t debut. Again, the songs rocked harder, and the guitars were more prominent in the sound. Again, there are some power ballad/AOR type songs, but there is a good bit of guitar driven rock on this album. Go! and Too Late are great rock anthems, in particular.

What's your opinion on Alpha? And are the band likely to play songs from the earlier 'era' live, or is a Deep Purple-style Mk I/Mk II type thing?

It's a very solid album, although the keys are a much more dominant part of the sound, as opposed to Astra and Aqua, which are more guitar driven. In that respect, it's a great album when you're in the mood for an AOR/Prog type of album. The song structures are more complex on this album than say something like Astra or Aqua, but I just prefer the more guitar heavy songs.