Asia � Aura 
Label: Spitfire
Rating: 
 

Sometimes when a band changes vocalist they carryon to new found glory like Van Halen did with Sammy Hagar. When Asia decided to regroup without John Wetton, they seemed to lose focus of what made their music so powerful on their first three albums. The band returns once more with John Payne on vocals but fails miserable to reach the platou of their multi-platinum debut or ambitious follow up that gave them the monster hit "Don't Cry".  What made Asia standout was the combination of Wetton's vocals and the progressive guitar and keyboards. We get none of those elements here. Listening to Aura it's hard to grasp that this is indeed an Asia album. The music goes straight for the adult contemporary market, forgoing their unique progressive arena rock sound and at times the songs stand on the edge of sounding like contemporary Christian rock.  Not to say that this is all bad, but it doesn't come close to living up to the band's previous work. 

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