So, let’s get this thing underway then.
For those who don’t know, Asia have been (mistakenly) described as a prog band. While there are some similarities --- their music is highly driven on banks of synths, they use some prog-style themes and the album covers, designed almost exclusively by Roger Dean, are very fantasy-like, not to mention that they were originally created by ex-members of prog groups --- Asia are not what I would consider a progressive rock group. I think it’s better to put them in the AOR category. But whatever you call them, they’ve been around since the early eighties and having gone through three lineup changes and two breakups, they’re back now and have a new album out just last year. I wasn’t impressed with their thirtieth-anniversary offering
XXX, and made no bones about it when reviewing it, but that aside they have always turned out consistently excellent albums, even when a track or two may be weak. Here’s where it all started.
Artiste: Asia
Nationality: British
Album: Asia
Year: 1982
Label: Geffen
Genre: AOR
Tracks:
Only time will tell
Heat of the moment
Sole survivor
One step closer
Time again
Wildest dreams
Without you
Cutting it fine
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: I have, and have enjoyed, every album they ever released. Apart from
XXX of course. I have it, but I hated it.
Interesting factoid: Not quite sure why they chose the name Asia, as none of the original band (nor indeed any of the later lineup) are from the Far East.
Initial impression: After the first two songs, which I had already heard on the radio and for which I bought the album, I pretty much hated this first time I listened to it. The perils of having your two strongest tracks at the start of your first album!
Best track(s):Only time will tell, Heat of the moment, sole survivor, One step closer, Wildest dreams
Worst track(s):Time again, Without you, Cutting it fine
Comments: I was nineteen when I bought this, just wavering between progressive rock and metal, (I would eventually go for the former) and still kind of led by what I heard on the radio. The first two tracks were singles and I loved them, and bought the album, on cassette, as I expected to be listening to it a lot and didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of taping it. Maybe. Anyway I remember I hated it and put it away, and it was a while before I got back to it. It’s still not the strongest Asia album by any stretch, and as a debut something of a fizzling firework really, but I can appreciate it more in the context of what they later released.
We open on the big hit singles and right from the off you’re hit by the big, growling guitar of Steve Howe that just demands your attention, then the vocal of John Wetton as “Heat of the moment” opens the album phenomenally well , although I do think that after such a powerful opening the chorus is a little weak, almost poppy. It’s still a great song though and it’s followed by another hit, “Only time will tell”, which allows Asia to stretch themselves a little more musically. Even here though it’s pretty clear that the band is the brainchild of Wetton and keyboard man Geoff Downes, as they between them write almost all of the songs and take vocal duties, with the other two doing what they do.
It’s also clear that vocal harmony will be one of the big trademarks and selling points of Asia, though in truth they would never have another real chart hit after this album, while still carving a really successful and lucrative career. And it’s odd, because some of the songs on later albums kick most of the ones here into the dust and stamp on their corpses, later coming back with a 4X4 to run them over and make sure they’re dead. Downes’ intricate layered keyboards would also be a longtime feature of the band, and he in fact would be the only member of the band who would stay through all the changes, shut downs, rebirths and reshuffles.
I guess it’s not possible to follow either of the first two tracks; they are after all commercial gold and radio stations were queuing up to play them, but “Sole survivor” is a good song also, though at the time I didn’t think so. Maybe it’s the more progressive build up approach in the intro, I don’t know. I just wanted the quality to keep high, and I didn’t believe it did. But “Sole survivor” is a really great song, another hooky chorus to die for, even if it only mostly consists of the title sung over. There’s a wonderful pause about halfway where Downes brings everything back up with a flutey repeated synth before Howe lets loose with a superb solo and it cannons into the end section. “One step closer” is almost the end of the really good songs, a boppy, jaunty almost love song with a very Yes-style intro on keys and guitar before Downes takes over again on fluid synth. Again, wonderful vocal harmonies and some almost xylophonic fills really make this song. It does however only seem to be getting going near the end when it suddenly and abruptly stops. That always annoyed me. It was like they were saying “Okay we’re finished with that one, let’s go on to the next one.” It needed a better ending.
As I say, unfortunately that’s where everything starts to drop dramatically. “Time again” is a good rocker, perhaps the closest the album comes to being hard rock, and a great vocal from Wetton, but there’s something missing about it. I don’t know what it is. It’s a good opportunity for Carl Palmer to show why he was such a leading light in ELP at least and Howe rips off a fine solo, and there’s some lovely piano work from Downes. Things look up momentarily then for “Wildest dreams”, with a keyboard arpeggio that would repeat itself three years later on their third album and a song that for me forms part of a quartet of songs across four albums and twenty years, dealing with the idea of world war. With a start taken almost directly from Genesis’s
Duke album, it again pushes their prog credentials, but it’s a fast, powerful song with stupendous piano again from Downes and an urgent, almost hurried and frenetic pace that really takes a hold of you, until it all ends with a fading vocal into distant pealing bells.
“Without you” is the first real Asia ballad, and while it’s not a terrible song it really feels like it’s just there because they thought they needed to have a slow song on the album. Even then, it’s not the kind of ballad they would become known (and in some quarters, jeered and despised) for, but seems to waver between slow rock cruncher and love song. Odd. Lovely soft keyboard intro, then it punches up on Howe’s guitar and Palmer’s battering percussion. Again, as in most of this album and indeed most of Asia’s catalogue down the years, the vocal harmonies are exquisite. We then end on the godawful “Cutting it fine”, which is about as poppy and filler as you can get, another sub-Yes tune and really for me closes the album on a really sour note. The only good thing about it is the lovely piano and keyboard outro from Downes.
Overall impression: As I said, I pretty much hated this on first listen. After repeated tries I got into it but it is still not anything close to what I would consider the best of Asia. I find a lot of the time it was like they were looking to find their own identity as they endeavoured to shake off the influences of the bands they had left --- King Crimson, ELP, Yes ---- and they tended to mirror some of these bands in the songs here. The second album would show a totally different bunch of musicians, ones who had left behind the traces of their previous bands and who were now committed to Asia. The album would be so much better for it.
Hum Factor: 7
Intention: n/a