Asia
Resonance

According to Wikipedia Asia has made 22 live albums prior to this one and if you ask me then it definitely isn't necessary with another one. This live cavalcade begun in 1991 with 'Live In Moscow' which was the only live album they released for quite some time before they completely went berserk with it. In 1997 solely they released four live albums and then in 2002 another four, despite the fact that they released three live albums just the year before. Besides these twelve albums they released two albums each year in 1999, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2010 and I'm not imagining that all of these albums has been released officially by Asia as only two of them are listed by the band themselves on their official website (but I guess it's more than two as there's plenty of studio albums they haven't listed either) so WIkipedia is probably not entirely reliable here. Either case, here is the 'Resonance' live album, recorded in Swiss Basel in 2010, shortly after the release of their 'Omega' album.

I'm sure more or less everybody knows about Asia by now. It's a continent on the Eurasian plate, but also a sort of super band with lots of famous and competent musicians. If there's any younglings out there who doesn't know their Asia I can enlighten you by saying it covers about 8.7 % of the total earth surface and hosts 60% of the earths population. But more importantly the band debuted in 1982 with their most successful album and probably the best one as well. Since then you can argue they've gone downhill. In the 80's they even disbanded for a few years. When they reformed, plenty of band member chaos kept going on which lead to a big controversy in the mid 00's when the original formation regrouped and rejoined the band while others still was in it. But now they've released three albums since then, all though this one is recorded before the last album was released.

The songs comes mainly from the two first and the two last Asia albums to be released before this album was recorded. Four songs comes from 'Asia', four from 'Alpha', one from 'Astra' then none from all albums between 1990 and 2005 and then two from 'Phoenix' and five from the just released 'Omega'. The reason why they haven't included any of the songs from the albums in the nineties and early twenties is of course a combination of most members not being in the band then and the lack of hit-songs that came in that era.

Anyway, I think I've spoken very much about information around the album and not so much about what's on it, so let's get to the point - how does 'Resonance' sound? Well, it's very well played, correct and proper. It's almost so neatly putted together that you even can't hear it's a live album at all and beside the short sequences of applause between songs the best demonstration of it even being a live album are the two songs All's A Chord and The Valley Of Rocks coming after each other as track 7 and 8. Otherwise the audience is more or less unhearble and the music so tight and well-played that you really don't reflect over it being played then and there in one big sequence. And there's also very little talking. I feel the whole albums feels a little bit like 'XXX' - it's good and well-played but that real bite or edge is missing. I think the problem is that it's over produced, or over done. All the emotions and energy has gone missing, and that's never a good thing. I personally find it very negative. Sure, when it comes to Asia it has never been about anything else than showing off rather than touching people but to me it still feels a bit like they're just standing there and performing without engagement. Sure, they play good but without energy and joy so it still just a shrug to me.

I imagine that the DVD recorded with 18 HD-cameras and everything you'll get from that will be better and might even engage you with more energy and feeling but you really don't hear those things on the album and that's what I've been given to review. But if you are a fan of Asia you really should get the DVD before the CD anyway because if not for anything else, I'm pretty sure that will give you a whole lot more live-feel because then you'll see the band perform, you'll see the audience go nuts (if they did so) and you'll hopefully get more of a kick by seeing them there and then performing. I think live albums can be good, but it's rather rare that they are and in the case of Asia on 'Resonance' it's not. It's well-played but boring.

HHHHHHH