Customer Reviews:
 The Best! January 28, 2008
L. Scarnati (Ohio)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Wonderful CD - had the album years ago. Every song is a hit, and if your like me, perfect for singing when you are alone in your car!
Asia December 26, 2007
Harry Brewer (S'port, La.)
This is about as close to being an essential album as an artist can get without being rated as such. The line up of songs is near fantastic; it's arena rock at near its best. Best songs on here are "Heat of the Moment" "Sole Survivor", "Without You" & "Cutting It Fine". It's the song "One Step Closer" that keeps this album from being essential.
Asia was a "supergroup" with its members coming from other well established groups: Steve Howe (lead guitarist from Yes), Carl Palmer (drummer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer), John Wetton (vocalist & bassist from King Crimson) & Geoff Downes (keyboardist from the Buggles). With that lineup you just knew you were gonna get prog/art rock out of you-know-what! Surprise! They actually gave us a commercial, streamlined version of that. They still seemed to be pompous in their music.
This is probably the only studio album one needs to own on this group. The following albums fell off dramatically in quality. Liner notes are non-existent. But the album cover is sensational. Yes fans will know who I'm referring to!
 Great musicians making poor music August 25, 2007
Guy Campeau (Stoneham, Quebec Canada)
3 out of 12 found this review helpful
I remember when this cd was released in the 80's...the supergroup made of some great musicians of prog music....this album got immediate success, everybody liked it. Now listen to this cd again and realize how this was a poor cd. I did and I can say that this album is really poor and I won't listen to it for the rest of my life, this is the kind of pop prog for the mass and has nothing to do with real prog music. Instead, look for what these guys has made in the 70's with their respective bands and you'll see the difference....
Not in My Wildest Dreams August 13, 2007
Thomas K. Emanuel (Deadwood, SD USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
At the dawn of the 1980s, the ship of progressive rock had all but foundered on the jagged reefs of musical fashion, weighted down with its leaden pretensions and buoyed on toward ruin by a new wave. Things looked bleak for fans of this once-glorious genre. But then, like a phoenix from the ashes, a band arose from the wreck, borne on the wings of a dragon: Asia.
By its very nature, any supergroup is bound to inspire somewhat outsize expectations. But Asia had outsize expectations even for a supergroup. Assembled from the ranks of Yes (Steve Howe), Emerson Lake & Palmer (Carl Palmer), King Crimson (John Wetton), and the Buggles (Geoff Downes), Asia - or the idea of Asia - must have seemed a band of messianic proportions to fans of prog rock. So with outsize expectations firmly in place, Asia proceeded to confound them utterly.
The big hits "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell" give a good indication of ASIA, both album and band, overall. One can hear traces of King Crimson in Wetton's elephantine bass sound and passionate vocals; there are moments that recall Yes when Howe interweaves his classically-tinged guitar lines with Downes' beefy keyboard textures. But ultimately, this doesn't sound like some alchemical fusion of its members' former bands. Because by focusing their attack into four-minute blasts instead of sprawling LP-length epics, Asia strip prog down to its sinewy core - "arena prog", if you care to put a label to it, sounding as much like Journey as Genesis. (Early Genesis, that is - in the early 80s, Genesis were blazing many of the same trails as Asia were.)
For prog purists, that constituted nothing short of treason. But for listeners who came without preconceptions - i.e. those who sent ASIA soaring to #1 and "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell" to #4 and #17, respectively - it sounded pretty damn awesome. The furious "Time Again", the pulsating "Here Comes the Feeling", the exuberant "One Step Closer"... still sounds pretty damn awesome, really. Asia may not have been able to save progressive rock. But they were able to produce a great album, and that's good enough for me.
 Decent slab of '80s rock July 27, 2007
Wyvern (Houston, Texas)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'll start off with the negative side of things. Even though it features several notable progressive rock musicians, this album shows little resemblance to that style, so if you're looking for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or Dark Side Of The Moon your search is futile. This album has much more in common with Frontiers than the aformentioned records.
That said, if you've ever wondered what it would be like to create a catchy, radio-ready album that still retained the ultraterrestrial atmosphere and flawless musicianship of prog...here is your album, my friend! This record has all the classics: "Heat of the Moment" (which features an excellent prog-style break at 1:43), "Only Time Will Tell", and five others which cracked the Billboard Top 40. As fate would have it, this became one of the archetypal albums of rock in the early '80s.
In short, if you're turned off by the overt fluffiness of bands like Journey and later Electric Light Orchestra, or rediscovering this album after 25 years, then by all means pick this up for the great price of $7.97!
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