Album Review: Asia – XXX

Listening to XXX, I can’t help but think two things. One, this is really catchy music. Despite the fact that the group has always been built around seriously ace players from the prog end of the pool – extraordinary vocalist/bassist John Wetton, guitarist Steve Howe, and drummer Carl Palmer (keyboardist Geoff Downes is always impressive, but inevitably a notch below the legendary status of his bandmates) – Asia has always, always been a song-based group. And thirty years after the MTV success of “Heat of the Moment,” they still deliver on tracks like the leadoff “Tomorrow the World.”

But the thought I have in tandem with that is this: there’s not really a big market for this highly-polished, radio ready music. I mean, I dig it, and I know people who’ll enjoy it (perhaps some of my readers among them), but there simply isn’t a chance that XXX is going to catch on commercially in 2012. Instead its best hope (and probably its goal) is to remind fans how catchy the band’s approach has always been, and to hope that will bring fans out to see live dates.

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