JOHN WETTON

'Sinister' is John's new studio album, and it is simply the finest thing that he has recorded since the debut Asia album all those years ago. The worry is that it may be ignored as there is so much Wetton material flooding out, but take it from me this is one of the best driving albums you are ever likely to hear.

John has been working with some very strong writers, including Jim Vallance (Bryan Adams), Jim Peterik (Survivor), Dick Wagner (Alice Cooper) and David Cassidy (!!) among others. In addition, he has worked on only one song with Martin Orford and Steve Christey (where instead of using Dave Kilminster he has brought in Gary Chandler). The first song, "Heart Of Darkness" begins and ends as a gentle number, but inbetween it is a fine AOR rocker. Having already been shocked by the quality of the opener, I wasn't ready for "Say It Ain't So" which is a classic. Imagine Asia mixing with Bryan Adams in a power ballad that can also belt along, then you may have some idea of how good this is. "No Ordinary Miracle" is much more in line with his ballads, and slows the album down a little. Then it is back with the third Vallance co-write, which again ups the tempo. A gentle instrumental (featuring Robert Fripp and Ian McDonald) leads into the hardest number on the album. This is "Another Twist Of The Knife", and Dick Wagner riffs the song along, as John gets heavy. This has great hooks and features some of John's best ever singing ? it is worth getting the album for this song alone!!

The song featuring Jadis, "Silently", is the most 'progressive' on the album, and features some very characteristic guitar work from Gary. It comes a close second to being the best song on the album. Both "Before Your Eyes" and "Second Best" are slower numbers, and then it is time for the closer "Real World". This is John with a 12-string, joined by Steve Hackett (on harmonica!). Overall, it is an awesome album, one that I took out of my CD interchanger with much dismay. If you have ever enjoyed any of John's work, or just want to hear a great melodic rock album then this is one that you simply have to get.

Originally appeared in Feedback #62, May 01

I'll start off saying that I like JOHN WETTON's voice but that alone can't save this live album, recorded in Poland. And I simply don't care about his bass playing. There's so many wonderful bass players in Progressive Rock and JOHN is just a regular one, competent, but his playing is always the same in tone and lines.

If ASIA, band which he was a big part of, arrangements usually suck, here JOHN WETTON shows himself able to ruin this versions even more, with cheesy keyboards (thanks to Martin Orford) and lame acoustic guitar versions (thanks to himself and John Mitchell). Steve Chrisley, the drummer, simply doesn't exist, pretty much, but his drums sound can't be praised.

Not to mention souless KING CRIMSON versions and, to complete the whole package, a really bad art on the cover.

JOHN WETTON, to my eyes, is like a Circus, that jumps from town to town (project to project/band to band), never settles down in any place and is always live from a glorious past.

Maybe that's why he never really get a name by himself.

Heat of the moment- a classic Asia song. Well I don't know how many versions we really do need, but I like this version very much. Wetton and Downes are in good shape. Maybe not prog, but excellent pop/rock after all. Truly wonderful song and I have always liked John Wetton's voice. Let Me go is also a good song and I like to listen it often as well as the whole album Icon. Good songs, excellent tunes. But buy the whole album, not this EP.(Well maybe the ep is not available anymore, but anyway) It is as good as the best Asia albums. Three and a half stars to this ep and four stars to the album.

I always admire John Wetton whenever he played with others in what so called "band" like he did with King Crimson, UK as well as Asia - even though the latter is not something as my favorite one because the music is not prog basically. But for some reason I doubt his capability to be a solo artist as many of his albums were not measuring up into my standard. Rased in Captivity is actually not good one or at least there is practically neither catchy or progressive track in the album. Yes, there is a huge effort by him through bringing together big names like Steve Mose (Lost For Words), Robert Fripp (Raised in Captivity), Steve Hackett (GoodBlye Elsinore), Tony Kaye, Geoff Downes, Mick Box (New Star Rising), Eddie Jobson, Yes, it's an atrraction point and a credit for his effort for this but unfortunately it does not lift up the overall quality of the music. It's hard to say it is good as there is no one track that really makes me hooked with it - everything just flow flat with practically no soul in it. It's totally different with Asia first album, for example, that has many catchy tracks even though the music is straight forward pop rock style.

Oh ...maybe good point with this album is in every single track we would try our best to indicate where and how the 'featuring' stars take place in the music. For example I am really observing the Hackett playing at the third track. One track that is probably quite catchy is The Human Condition - it has nice guitar solo but the contribution of Tony Kaye is not that really obvious.

This album is for collectors only - those who really want to have the work of Wetton throughout his musical career. Keep on proggin' ...!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

I am a huge John Wetton fan but this release is one of the biggest dissappointments I have heard......not just from him, but from ANYONE. I can see no point to this EP. How many bloody versions of Heat Of The Moment do we need !! The one here adds nothing to any of the countless other versions available. Then there are some 'orchestrated' Icon pieces.......very pleasant but I'm sorry, the orchestration adds absolutely nothing to the mix.....it's not exactly the Enid. The Smile has left your Eyes is represented by an appalling version. Very tender to begin with but it soon descends into blandness and why on earth the huge power chord (not as good as that sounds) at the end. Dreadful. Oh, and a new track (or new to me anyway). A waste of 2 minutes of my life. Sounds like Wetton wrote and performed it when he really was in bed. Avoid. A total waste of your hard earned cash.

It might not come as much of a surprise to most people that John Wetton decided once again to stick to his guns, thus making Raised In Captivity another AOR release. The surprising part is how uninspired and unsettlingly bland this collection of songs actually turns out to be!

Released under Frontiers Records (the same label as Asia) only a year after the prog supergroup's second reunion album Omega, there's really nothing that would have suggested to me that Wetton was running out of steam on his steady AOR streak that he began back in 1982. Unfortunately this definitely can be considered to be the final nail in the coffin of his nearly 30 year affiliation with the format.

This bland mess just proves that all the guest spots in the world can't save an album when the songwriting and performances aren't there. Artists like Steve Hackett, Geoff Downes, Robert Fripp, Tony Kaye, Steve Morse, Eddie Jobson and Mick Box have contributed to Raised In Captivity and it's quite unfortunate that none of them manages to stop this train wreck from ultimately happening. On some level, it would have actually felt less painful for me if these guest spots weren't here but there's just no way to avoid the unavoidable by awarding this release anything more than the completionists only rating that it barely reaches up to.

The songs are not quite there, even if some are slightly better than others, the '80s vibe is annoying and the guest spots are pretty much the only reason why completionists might be merely amused by Raised In Captivity. Approach this album at your own risk, you have been warned!

**** star songs: Steffi's Ring (2:36) Don't Misunderstand Me (3:43) Mighty Rivers (5:20)

*** star songs: Raised In Captivity (6:09) Goodbye Elsinore (4:44) We Stay Together (4:26) The Devil And The Opera House (6:51)

** star songs: Lost For Words (4:59) The Last Night Of My Life (5:54) The Human Condition (5:22) New Star Rising (4:33)

It's all about setting the right level of expectations...

Most of us here are well familiar with the great studio album trilogy of the 73-74 King Crimson lineup and some of us are also fans of the two late '70s U.K. albums. Wouldn't it have been swell to hear more of that great music on a John Wetton solo album? Well, you can pretty much forget all that on Battle Lines since 1982 was the year that Wetton discovered his niche in the AOR genre which he's been relying on ever since!

Does this mean that Battle Lines is a bad release? No, not at all. In fact, this is easily the best collection of tracks that Wetton has released since the famous Asia debut. Just keep in mind that this album has nothing even remotely prog related on it and you'll be just fine. I happen to enjoy this type of music when it has just enough momentum to it and Battle Lines certainly delivers the goods in the somewhat cheesy songwriting department. Most of these tracks will make you realize the Wetton has no intention of leaving the '80s since this release sounds almost exactly like the early Asia recordings. The material tends to lean heavily on the softer ballad-driven side of the band's repertoire with Right Where I Wanted To Be being as bombastic as this material will ever get.

If you're a fan of Asia and know their debut, Alpha, Phoenix and Omega by heart then this is definitely a great follow-up purchase for you. If you're looking for that wonderful bass player and singer from the '70s, who could mesmerize us with his vocals and skillful playing, then you'll have more luck exploring all the great live King Crimson records that have been reissued over the last decade. John Wetton has no intention of reinventing the wheel with his material so keep those expectations at a reasonable level and you'll find Battle Lines to be a pleasant little album well worth a few spins.

**** star songs: Right Where I Wanted To Be (4:56) Battle Lines (5:25) Crime Of Passion (4:43) Hold Me Now (5:58) Space And Time (4:07) Walking On Air (3:10) You're Not The Only One (5:02)

*** star songs: Jane (4:19) Sand In My Hand (3:50) Sea Of Mercy (4:40)

This collection, marking the end of John Wetton's association with E.G. Records, is a somewhat skewed compilation of his work in the seventies. Five songs by U.K., five from his first solo album, one track listed as coming from the one album from his seventy-nine one-off band Jack-Knife (the track isn't listed on sites I can find for the album, so I presume it was left off of the LP), and, strangely, only two tracks by King Crimson (and only one of these was on the original LP version).

For the most part, the sonds tend toward Wetton's pop side, a direction he was heading in when U.K. was declining. At least the U.K. songs have a small amount of prog in them. The songs from "Caught In The Crossfire" are just a small hair better (for the most part) than the AOR drivel Wetton created in Asia.

The better songs are In The Dead Of Night, from U.K.'s debut, and Starless (the track not on the LP) dfrom King Crimson's "Red".

Eyesight To The Blind by Wetton's Jack-Knife (which also included Richard Palmer-James) is worth hearing just because it's so different from any other version I know of, but only adds slight value to this collection.

All in all, it's much better to get the original albums.

Ugh!

This album was recorded in Japan, on a tour to promote the 1994 album "Battle Lines", so a fair number of the tracks are from that album. And those tracks are the worst on the album. It seems that since eroding the band UK down to pop music, Wetton has been deteriorating into a completely uninteresting songwriter (note the decline from UK1 to UK2 to Asia to this). At least his voice still sounds like an injured bull moose.

I had heard much of Wetton's post UK work over the years, and really had no interest in him after hearing more than a few boring Asia tracks (some of which are covered on this album), but after seeing a song list from this release, with UK and King Crimson represented, I requested a copy.

Rendezvous 6:02 is done well. Keyboardist John Beck (It Bites) does a good job of imitating Eddie Jobson's fine work on that song. And unlike some of the other prog songs, it's not dumbed down. Easy Money is brief, and lacks the power of King Crimson. In The Dead Of Night is okay, although it's only the first part of the song. Bob Dalton (also from It Bites) does a great Bruford imitation on this one. Thirty Years is a waste, as they don't play the best part of the song, the instrumental section. Book Of Saturday is okay, but very different sounding from the original.

And Starless is an abomination. Wetton chooses to play only the verse sections, leaving out what is one of the best pieces of music he ever did with Crimson. I can only think he either 1. didn't want to play complex music anymore 2. Didn't feel he could play complex music anymore, or 3. Didn't think his audience wanted to hear him play good music anymore.

Whichever, BOOOOOOOO, John Wetton. BOOOOOOOOO!

Well, by following the whole career by John, you can understand such an uneven music artistic inspiration, above all if you regard of his progressive period with King Crimson and UK for instance; and then listening to his solo albums of the late nineties (note: partially in the recent years as well), you accept the way John chose the commercial music, anyway. Nevertheless the present live production can be "labelled" among the different alternative genres, as for his recent attempt in exploring new music territories, even though quite melodic and anyway listenable, if you regard the likings of the common people...but coming back to the present live, I like to remark the importance of such prog tunes like "In the Dead of Night" by UK, here in a good version and quite listenable for the common listener; then "The Night Watch", a crimson classic that is losing something here, above all by comparing it to the original and the immortal "Starless", whose "incipit" is always melancholic and the development of the plot fine too!! Then I appreciate a sweet ballad like "Emma" and the good arrangement regarding "The Last Thing On My Mind" after the guitar intro of the opener, which is characterized by the typical mood of the most dramatic tones of a few solo albums by John!

"Rendez-Vous 6:02 " instead is lacking the famous solo at the analogic synth (CS80) by Eddie Jobson, cause here it looks like a normal ballad; besides another famous and a bit sad tune entitled "Book of Saturday" ("Crimson" Era) doesn't add anything to the original , but it is an intelligent contribution to this mix between the old stuff and that interesting recent one (except on a few exceptions, like for instance "Suzanne", a bit tepid...).

Not the best live by John, but it's quite worth checking out at least!