| Artist: | Asia |
| Title: | Aria |
| Label: | Bullet Proof Records |
| Length(s): | 48 minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 1994 |
| Month of review: | 06/1994 |
| 1) | Anytime | 4.57 |
| 2) | Are You Big Enough? | 4.08 |
| 3) | Desire | 5.20 |
| 4) | Summer | 4.07 |
| 5) | Sad Situation | 3.59 |
| 6) | Don't Cut The Wire (brother) | 5.20 |
| 7) | Feels Like Love | 4.50 |
| 8) | Remembrance Day | 4.19 |
| 9) | Enough's Enough | 4.37 |
| 10) | Military Man | 4.10 |
| 11) | Aria | 2.27 |
All tracks written by Geoff Downes and John Payne.
Taking a closer look a found the artwork is as always very good by a certain Mr. Dean that some of you might remember from most of the Yes covers. An inspection of the songlengths reveals that a songbased approach is probably that what has been taken: my guess were confirmed after the first listen. The songs are very much in the AOR fashion with light symphonic overtones, mostly due to the use of synthesizers. The fact that I say AOR is based on two things: the vocals by Payne (that remind me somewhat of Clarkin of Magnum fame, though less characteristic (which is positive I think)) and most of the songs are in the refrain format. This is not anything new you might say, because bands like old-Asia and GTR were also like this. True, and it's also these bands that can be used as reference (not very strange I suppose). It is worthwhile to note that the guitar isn't very prominent on this album (as opposed to many other melodic bands of this kind).
The strengths of albums like these is always in the melodies of the songs. The playing and production is usually alright and the albums usually do not create an atmosphere. The lyrics are down to earth as was to be suspected. The melodies range from reasonable to very good. All songs support on the quite inventive playing by Downes and the Paynes vocals. Some songs turn out to be quite bombastic (in the Magnum style) by means of the vocal harmonies and the keyboardparts (Desire, Anytime), while others are a bit dreamy (Summer, Feels like love). And others vary a bit along the way: for instance Don't Cut the Wire is mid-tempo in the beginning but accelerates at the end. Another song is Remembrance day. The song is about the Vietnam veterans that have been forgotten (at least that's what I gathered). The guitarwork is very prominent in this song and moves towards bands like Threshold and maybe a bit of Dream Theater though less frantic. Fact is that this song is quite heavy.
They did save the best little goody to the last, because Aria is the pinnacle of this album. It's a sort of a classical/piano reprise of Desire. Comparing this album with Asia by Asia I must say that the main differences are that the melodies on Asia are more poppy (Heat of the Moment, Only Time Will Tell, Sole Survivor, One Step Closer, the chorus of Here Comes The Feeling). I'd say the style of new-Asia is a bit like Only Time Will Tell in the less poppy parts of he song with less emphasis on guitar and more on melody and keyboard. The high point of Asia is IMO Without You and I think that no song on Aria reaches this level, but on the average I like Aria better than Asia (but feel free to disagree). I also think that Payne's voice better fits the music (I mean Wetton has done so many other things, very good things that he doesn't really fit in).