Asia - XXX

Asia

XXX

by Sharon "Metal Chick" Bar-Or at 06 September 2012, 6:26 PM

So, "XXX" is lucky number 15 in ASIA's discography list, the twelfth studio album and 30 years of work: Double celebration!!!

ASIAis a British Rock group formed in 1982. The band was labeled a super groupas it included former members of several veteran progressive rock bands, namely bassist / vocalist John Wetton (formerly in MOGUL THRASH, FAMILY, KINGCRIMSON, ROXY MUSIC, URIAH HEEP, U.K. and WISHBONE ASH), guitarist Steve Howe (formerly, and subsequently in YES), keyboardist Geoff Downes (of YES and THEBUGGLES) and drummer Carl Palmer(formerly in THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN, ATOMIC ROOSTER and EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER). The band has been through multiple line-up changes in its history, but the current line-up is a reunion of that original line-up. A second band, called ASIA featuring John Payne, exists in parallel as a continuation of a pre-2006 ASIA line-up.

So you know, only a super group like ASIA can have a track called "No Religion" and afterwards, at the following track to have a track called "Faithful":Just because of this and after listening more than once to XXX I realize that this world, the human mind is tricky with multi-faces nature and I believe XXX is a great example of this. By the way, the name features the Roman numeral XXX, in commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the release of their debut album. The cover artwork was created by Roger Dean; the flying dragon-fish indicates that 2012 is the Year of The Water Dragon in the Chinese calendar.

John Wetton (Bass/Vocals): Voice of angels with bells, really delightful!!! Such clean vocal abilities and emotional spirit, which mean: reliable and it's very easy as a vocalist to get lost in the instruments lime-light but John have manage to take me to the edge of the sub-genre: progressive rock, and also a fine one! Geoff Downes (Keyboards): Great techniques, very much like Jon Lord from DEEP PURPLE (R.I.P) but still very much original and also extremely diverse and all the progressive rock fans would agree with me that all the above are the foundation of an excellent album. Steve Howe (Guitar): Absolutely divine!!! Every sound that comes out of Steve's guitar is heaven-like sound. Such a beautiful décor to a fine album such as XXX and it really hit me in the final part of the eighth track: "Judas" and the last track also "Ghost of a Chance" along with the keyboard gave me goose bumps. Carl Palmer (Drums): Stationaryyet surprising. You can really hear the originality of Carl's drumming work in between the parts when Wetton sings.

So give the "Ghost of a Chance" to lead you and enjoy ASIA's "XXX".

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