When talented musicians from famous bands like Yes, ELP and King Crimson get together and create a super group what becomes the result? In this case; a big world tour and the best selling album of 1982. This fact doesn't tell us much about the music though. Heat of the Moment and Only Time Will Tell are timeless classics which got a lot of air play during the time of the album. They both are warm and emotional arena rock songs with memorable melodies and choruses, and John Wetton's voice fits perfect. The album as a whole shows the talents of the musicians both when it comes to song writing skills and musicianship. Steve Howe gets a lot of time to show his creativity and when it comes to invent original and progressive guitar work, but at the same time it's held back at a radio friendly level. The mix of warm and sing a long friendly rock, where almost every song could have been a hit single, with the progressive and jazzy guitar work from Steve Howe make this album am absolute classic!

Wonderful CD - had the album years ago. Every song is a hit, and if your like me, perfect for singing when you are alone in your car!

This is about as close to being an essential album as an artist can get without being rated as such. The line up of songs is near fantastic; it's arena rock at near its best. Best songs on here are "Heat of the Moment" "Sole Survivor", "Without You" & "Cutting It Fine". It's the song "One Step Closer" that keeps this album from being essential.

Asia was a "supergroup" with its members coming from other well established groups: Steve Howe (lead guitarist from Yes), Carl Palmer (drummer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer), John Wetton (vocalist & bassist from King Crimson) & Geoff Downes (keyboardist from the Buggles). With that lineup you just knew you were gonna get prog/art rock out of you-know-what! Surprise! They actually gave us a commercial, streamlined version of that. They still seemed to be pompous in their music.

This is probably the only studio album one needs to own on this group. The following albums fell off dramatically in quality. Liner notes are non-existent. But the album cover is sensational. Yes fans will know who I'm referring to!

I remember when this cd was released in the 80's...the supergroup made of some great musicians of prog music....this album got immediate success, everybody liked it. Now listen to this cd again and realize how this was a poor cd. I did and I can say that this album is really poor and I won't listen to it for the rest of my life, this is the kind of pop prog for the mass and has nothing to do with real prog music. Instead, look for what these guys has made in the 70's with their respective bands and you'll see the difference....

At the dawn of the 1980s, the ship of progressive rock had all but foundered on the jagged reefs of musical fashion, weighted down with its leaden pretensions and buoyed on toward ruin by a new wave. Things looked bleak for fans of this once-glorious genre. But then, like a phoenix from the ashes, a band arose from the wreck, borne on the wings of a dragon: Asia.

By its very nature, any supergroup is bound to inspire somewhat outsize expectations. But Asia had outsize expectations even for a supergroup. Assembled from the ranks of Yes (Steve Howe), Emerson Lake & Palmer (Carl Palmer), King Crimson (John Wetton), and the Buggles (Geoff Downes), Asia - or the idea of Asia - must have seemed a band of messianic proportions to fans of prog rock. So with outsize expectations firmly in place, Asia proceeded to confound them utterly.

The big hits "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell" give a good indication of ASIA, both album and band, overall. One can hear traces of King Crimson in Wetton's elephantine bass sound and passionate vocals; there are moments that recall Yes when Howe interweaves his classically-tinged guitar lines with Downes' beefy keyboard textures. But ultimately, this doesn't sound like some alchemical fusion of its members' former bands. Because by focusing their attack into four-minute blasts instead of sprawling LP-length epics, Asia strip prog down to its sinewy core - "arena prog", if you care to put a label to it, sounding as much like Journey as Genesis. (Early Genesis, that is - in the early 80s, Genesis were blazing many of the same trails as Asia were.)

For prog purists, that constituted nothing short of treason. But for listeners who came without preconceptions - i.e. those who sent ASIA soaring to #1 and "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell" to #4 and #17, respectively - it sounded pretty damn awesome. The furious "Time Again", the pulsating "Here Comes the Feeling", the exuberant "One Step Closer"... still sounds pretty damn awesome, really. Asia may not have been able to save progressive rock. But they were able to produce a great album, and that's good enough for me.