Asia Shm

This marriage of four players with impressive pedigrees proved to be the success story of 1982 when Asia's debut lodged itself at the top of the U.S. album charts for two months…

Released in 1985, Astra is Asia's third studio album and first without guitarist Steve Howe. While somewhat unfairly regarded in comparison to Asia's first two albums, Astra is nonetheless a solid prog rock outing that finds bassist/vocalist John Wetton, keyboardist Geoff Downes, drummer Carl Palmer, and replacement guitarist, Krokus' Mandy Meyer, delivering a set of melodic and driving rock anthems…

"Alpha" is the second album by the "supergroup", and once again comprises entirely of shorter, more commercially orientated songs than those of the members' previous groups. The album is very much a follow on from the band's debut album, but benefits from the famous four knowing each other that bit better, and thus working more cohesively together…

Have You Ever Been Experienced? Third release from the "This is SHM-CD" series of low-priced SHM-CD music samplers with bonus CDs to compare the quality of SHM-CD to standard CD. The high-fidelity SHM-CD format is fully compatible with standard CD players.

Opening with a few bars of Stravinsky to set the adoring crowd on its feet, this once-three-LP set is Yes at their finest. This was, after all, probably the most mainstream act that had even provisional "prog rock" status, and their tunes show it. While "Heart of the Sunrise" may be one of the more modestly titled Yes songs (compare it with "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" or "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)" or even "Total Mass Retain"), it also bears marks of the band playing at its most frenetic pace around Jon Anderson's soaring near-falsetto. Rick Wakeman's grand synthesizer flashes are more than textural, finding visual meshes aplenty with Roger Dean's cryptic cover art–most of which is shrunken or absent on this two-CD reissue…

The debut album from amalgamated progsters John Wetton, Bill Bruford, Eddie Jobson, and Allan Holdsworth has the edge over both Danger Money and Night After Night because of the synthesis of melody and rhythm that is inflicted through nearly every one of the eight tracks…