We didn’t need another Asia album. As a matter of fact, you may have never needed Asia’s first blockbuster! Still, I’ll anxiously await new tunes when original keyboardist Geoff Downes gets together with a mix of prog-rock luminaries and a talented newcomer to reboot the band. After all, Yes is a shadow now, Genesis is finished, and two-thirds of ELP is dead. Somebody has to fill the prog-rock void, and this newfangled lineup of Asia has entered the ring. The group will release its new album, Indigo, on November 6th, and the album’s third single, “Arcadia,” recently dropped. Naturally, I’m here to check it out.
If the name Asia doesn’t ring a bell, its songs probably will. “Only Time Will Tell,” “Sole Survivor,” and “Don’t Cry” were all hits, but “Heat of the Moment” became the band’s signature smash. Formed in 1981 by veterans of progressive-rock giants Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, plus half of the early MTV darlings the Buggles, Asia took the musicianship and grandeur of prog and compressed it into irresistible arena-pop hooks. The results were glorious, bombastic, cheesy, and almost always catchy. Asia has long been one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
Not many bands are making updated eighties prog-pop these days, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what I’ve heard from Indigo. I enjoyed the first two singles, “The Traveller” and “Echo of You,” enough that I approached the third, “Arcadia,” expecting more of the same. After my first listen, though, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Seven listens later, I’m still not.
Interestingly, Wikipedia says that Asia’s third album, Astra, was originally titled Arcadia. Unfortunately, that was also the name of a side project by Duran Duran. “Arcadia,” the song in 2026, is a nice callback to those halcyon days, though, and it opens promisingly with enormous piano chords and atmospheric pads before heavy drums and power chords muscle their way in. The intro is majestic as John Mitchell’s lead guitar rises above the grand platform that Downes and drummer Virgil Donati create. Then it sifts into unexpected piano arpeggios and the arrival of Harry Whitley’s vocals.
“Arcadia” has a suitable Asia opening, but the tune soon struggles to build from it. The first verse asks a little too much of new singer Harry Whitley from the perspective of age. Outside of the initial vocal and piano, subsequent verses march forward atop an aggressive beat punctuated by staccato bursts of distorted guitar and layers of choral keyboards. Plenty is going on, and the song’s prog pedigree shines through via the unusual augmented chord changes and arrangement. Then, I heard Whitley drop a “whilst” into something he sang about marble statues. I hate that word! It’s so pretentious.
I expected the chorus of “Arcadia” to be the moment when everything finally opened up, but I find it surprisingly understated. For a band whose greatest trick was writing complicated music that still belonged on the Top 40, “Arcadia” never quite finds the hook I kept waiting for. Maybe it’s just a prog thing, but the first chorus came two-and-a-half-minutes into the song.
As far as lyrics go, Asia is at its worst when the band goes for political commentary. There’s some of that in all of Indigo‘s singles so far, but the tune also highlights how thirty-year-old Whitley was once “young and dumb enough to believe.” Double his age, John Wetton could sing those sentiments when he was Asia’s frontman. Unfortunately, Whitley’s voice rings hollow in comparison. He’ my age, or close to it! I’m still young and dumb enough to believe.
At the end of the day, “Arcadia” is something of an oddity among the three Indigo singles so far. “The Traveller” was energetic, while “Echo of You” struck me as more adventurous in its atypical conventionality; “Arcadia” has the bombast, keyboards, guitars, and prog flourishes here and there, but they’re attached to a song that just feels leaden. Even a Geoff Downes piano break late in the tune -something I should be predisposed to enjoy- feels inessential. Eventually, everything recedes and the song ends with its title whispered into the atmosphere.
Indigo’s opening track, “The Traveller,” is my favorite single so far. “Arcadia” isn’t. It’s not bad, and there are enough interesting chords, textures, and little Downes-isms to keep it from becoming boring. Still, the song feels more like Asia’s output under the maligned Geoff Downes/John Payne era of the nineties than anything the supergroup pumped out during its prime or reunion.
That said, “Arcadia” hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for Indigo. This version of Asia is attempting the impossible task of carrying on without John Wetton. His voice, bass, songwriting, and personality were fundamental to what made the original band work. Indigo is said to channel some of his legacy, and it even features an appearance from original guitarist Steve Howe. I’m curious to hear how all of that fits together across an entire album, and I hope it’s more cohesive and dynamic than “Arcadia” turned out to be.
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