ASTRA

The last album of classic Asia... or actually, almost-classic Asia as Steve Howe already had to leave the band after troubles within the band, first forcing John Wetton to leave, but finally leaving the shortest straw to Howe, who was replaced by Mandy Meyer.

It's not that surprising that this was the last sign of life for years: the album contains some good tracks, some guilty pleasures, but especially a lot of quite lame tracks. On the good side are opener Go and the gallopping closer After The War (the rhythm is slightly resemblant to Rush' Countdown (from the Signals album)). Among the guilty pleasures we find Voice Of America (which is good when taken not too seriously) and Rock And Roll Dream, which is basically very good, but it just runs a little bit too long. However, John Wetton's cryout "Toniiiiiiiiiiiiight" is great enough to forgive the length.

Unfortunately, all the goods are mentioned then. The keyboard outro to Hard On Me is particularly exemplaric of how dated this record is, but the other tracks are not much better. Sometimes enjoyable, but nothing to really return for.