ASIA, the English supergroup formed in London in 1981, are celebrating their 40th anniversary by releasing a 5-CD box set The Reunion Albums: 2007 – 2012 through BMG Records in the U.K. on June 11, 2021. The collection arrives on June 25 in the U.S.
In 2006-2007, the band’s four original members – John Wetton (King Crimson, lead vocal/bass), Steve Howe (YES, guitars), Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, drums) and Geoff Downes (The Buggles, YES, keyboards), reunited to celebrate their 25th anniversary with a world tour.
A live album from the tour, Fantasia, Live in Tokyo was released in 2007 as they returned to the studio together for the first time in a quarter of a century. The reunion would yield three albums Phoenix (2008), Omega (2010) and XXX (2012) as they celebrated their 30th anniversary.
The new collection features the five discs in a deluxe box set, designed by Roger Dean, who produced all of the original albums’ artwork. The box set cover image was previously unused and the Fantasia sleeve design has been updated by Dean.
Of these later albums Palmer said, “The chemistry and energy that comes out when the four of us are working together, is reflected in the new material.” For his part, Wetton marveled at how far the band had come. “The sound reflects the collective maturity of these four people who are not only eager to explore but also relaxed enough to luxuriate in the strength of the material.”
Listen to their instantly recognizable sound from 2008’s Phoenix
Fantasia, Live In Tokyo features many of the tracks from their first two albums Asia (1982) and Alpha (1983) together with classic rock tracks from each of the band members’ musical history.
Listen to two of those legacy tracks
ASIA took the music world by a storm with their self-titled debut album which spent nine weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart and, globally, was the biggest-selling album of 1982. The single, “Heat of the Moment,” a soft-rock anthem, reached the top 40 in over a dozen markets, peaking in the U.S. at #4 on the Hot 100.
BMG also plans to release a box set, ASIA in Asia, from 1983, with Greg Lake temporarily replacing John Wetton. (Lake passed in 2016. Wetton died just over a month later in 2017.)
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1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationThe 3 studio albums, that the original lineup recorded after their reunion, are among the very best the band did. They deserve to be heard and appreciated by fans. Most songs were written by John Wetton and Geoff Downes; few by Steve Howe, who left the band again, and its the reason because they did record one last album without him. This last studio album, has a “harder edge” because the “new guitar player s´sound was stronger. I think its a good album, but can not stand the guitar sound.