{"id":465,"date":"2011-03-11T08:03:10","date_gmt":"2011-03-11T13:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=465"},"modified":"2023-07-12T08:59:26","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T12:59:26","slug":"album-review-asia-spirit-of-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/11\/album-review-asia-spirit-of-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Asia – Spirit of the Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s difficult to know for whom exactly this release is intended. Asia<\/strong>\u2019s brand of prog-meets-pop enjoyed well-deserved chart and critical success in the early 80s (the early MTV era), but when the supergroup splintered (with key members being replaced by, well, less-well-known names) and the quartet soldiered on with the same formula, the group dropped off of the radar.<\/p>\n

Some thirty years later, Asia returned with the classic lineup and a musical approach that has remained wholly unmodified. On this live release, the group sounds exactly the same as they did on record. And quite honestly, that makes this listener a bit suspicious. While the playing and vocals are ace, they\u2019re almost too<\/em> perfect. The backing vocals in particular sound exactly the same as the record, suggesting either (a) post-show studio fiddling with these recordings or (b) some sort of live, on-the-fly triggering of pre-recorded backing vocals. (My money\u2019s on \u201cb\u201d.) Either way, there\u2019s not a hair\u2019s breadth of difference between these live versions and what you have on your well-worn vinyl copy of Asia<\/em> or Alpha<\/em> (you probably don\u2019t have the ones after that).<\/p>\n

After a pair of songs from that record, the live show moves into some newer material. As bassist\/vocalist John Wetton<\/strong> (Family, Uriah Heep, <\/strong>Roxy Music<\/strong>, <\/strong>UK<\/strong>, King Crimson<\/strong>, etc.) tells us, \u201cAn Extraordinary Life\u201d was originally on the 2008 album Phoenix<\/em>. The song has a sound halfway between early Asia and the sort of straightforward, tuneful heavy pop Wetton served up on his solo releases like 1980\u2019s Caught in the Crossfire<\/em>. So if you dig that approach (call it \u201ctimeless\u201d or \u201cdated\u201d based on your own point of view), you\u2019ll like it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s perhaps a bit too much spit and polish on Spirit of the Night<\/em>; the performances and recordings border on the antiseptic. To be fair, that level of fussy detail is a hallmark of Asia\u2019s style. As such, a loose performance would be shocking and disappointing. So note-perfect playing is what you get. Lesser-known tracks like \u201cMy Own Time\u201d slow the pace a bit, but \u201cOpen Your Eyes\u201d will seem familiar even if you don\u2019t know the song; it bears all the Asia hallmarks of pop songwriting and proggy delivery. Steve Howe (Tomorrow, Yes)<\/strong> delivers a typically soaring guitar solo.<\/p>\n

Carl Palmer<\/strong> (Emerson, <\/strong>Lake<\/strong> and…<\/strong>) gets his spotlight on a cover of \u201cFanfare for the Common Man.\u201d (Is it a cover when it\u2019s song by one of the member\u2019s old bands? Well, Aaron Copland<\/strong> wrote it, so we\u2019ll go with \u201cyes.\u201d) It\u2019s nearly a note-for-note recreation of the ELP version, as Geoff Downes<\/strong> (Yes, Buggles<\/strong>) nails the Keith Emerson<\/strong> synth parts, but Howe\u2019s guitar solo adds some excitement. And while Greg Lake<\/strong> was (and is) a fine bassist, Wetton is a stunning one. The dueling solos are pretty nifty, and allow the players to show off their chops without getting overly indulgent.<\/p>\n

As the show continues, the band wisely spotlights the best material from their first two albums and the 2008 set. They wisely avoid the Asia material from periods when Howe, Wetton and\/or Palmer weren\u2019t with the band. Wetton successfully hits the soaring high vocal notes on \u201cHere Comes the Feeling\u201d most of the time, and when he briefly goes a bit flat, it\u2019s almost welcome as a sign that this set was performed by humans, not robots.<\/p>\n

Some of the songs are thin rewrites of other ones: the ironically-tiled \u201cNever Again\u201d (from Phoenix<\/em>) takes a number of sonic elements from earlier hits, betraying a formulaic approach. That said, it\u2019s not a bad tune. \u201cSole Survivor\u201d from the debut comes across perhaps best of all; with its wah-wah guitar and bracing organ, the song is more firmly set in ’70s styles.<\/p>\n

A bonus track is appended to the disc: a 2007 live version of Alpha<\/em>\u2019s \u201cMidnight Sun\u201d sounds quite different from the arena rock one usually expects from Asia. The subdued number lacks the anthemic qualities of Asia\u2019s best-known material, but it\u2019s an interesting track nonetheless. Its inclusion here is a bit puzzling, however.<\/p>\n

Every Asia song you could possibly want is on this set; the band wraps up with \u201cHeat of the Moment,\u201d and if you\u2019re of a certain age, you will \u2013 for the length of this CD — in fact \u201cfind yourself in eighty-two.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Note: the audio CD is packaged with a DVD covering the same material; the latter was unavailable for preview\/review.) <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s difficult to know for whom exactly this release is intended. Asia\u2019s brand of prog-meets-pop enjoyed well-deserved chart and critical success in the early 80s (the early MTV era), but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25631,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions\/25631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}