Aqua marked a new chapter for Asia — the first without their original voice. By 1992 the supergroup’s golden run was long over, John Wetton had departed, and keyboardist Geoff Downes had quietly become the band’s captain. With a new singer at the helm, Aqua rebooted Asia for the 1990s: a polished, melodic AOR record that many fans still rate as the strongest of the era that followed.

The short version

Aqua (1992) is the fourth studio album by Asia, and the first to feature vocalist and bassist John Payne, who had replaced founding singer John Wetton. Built around the new partnership of Payne and keyboardist-producer Geoff Downes — with founding members Steve Howe and Carl Palmer contributing only sporadically, and guitarist Al Pitrelli handling most of the guitar work — it traded the band’s early bombast for a leaner, more grounded 1990s melodic rock.

The end of an era

After the disappointment of Astra (1985), Asia had splintered, then slowly reassembled around Geoff Downes. In April 1991, John Wetton — the band’s original voice and co-writer — left for good, disillusioned by their fading fortunes in America. Downes invited John Payne, a powerful singer and bassist, to take his place, forming a partnership that would steer Asia for the next fifteen years. Aqua was their first album together, and effectively the start of a whole new phase of the band.

A band in flux

For all that Aqua is billed as an Asia reunion, its line-up was in constant motion. Steve Howe returned during the sessions, having just left Yes once again, but appears more as a special guest — his contributions largely acoustic and textural, and his name on just one co-write. Carl Palmer began the album but soon departed to reunite Emerson, Lake & Palmer, playing on only a handful of tracks before session drummers Simon Phillips and Nigel Glockler stepped in. Much of the guitar, meanwhile, came from newcomer Al Pitrelli. In truth, Aqua was Geoff Downes’s project — his way of keeping Asia alive by blending old friends with new blood.

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The songs

Payne’s deeper, soulful voice gives Aqua a different character from the Wetton years, and Downes’s keyboards and songwriting shape almost every track. The album’s calling card is ‘Who Will Stop the Rain?’ — an environmentally themed AOR anthem that earned the record its main slice of radio play, and remains a favourite of the Payne-Downes era. Elsewhere, the ballad ‘Someday’ builds to a genuinely powerful climax, while ‘The Voice of Reason’ and ‘Heaven on Earth’ are among the album’s stronger moments. The instrumental ‘Aqua Part 1’ opens the record as a showcase for Steve Howe’s guitar, and Greg Lake even turns up as co-writer of ‘Love Under Fire.’

Reception and legacy

Reviews were mixed, and Aqua never troubled the charts as the early albums had — by 1992, Asia were, to most people, a memory. Yet critics often judged it a step up from the tired Astra, and it launched a durable second life for the band: Payne and Downes would go on to make several more albums together through to 2004. Aqua sits in a slightly contested corner of the Asia story — the reunited classic line-up would later downplay the Payne years — but for what it is, it’s a confident, tuneful reboot.

The verdict

Aqua isn’t the Asia of ‘Heat of the Moment,’ and it doesn’t pretend to be — the supergroup magic had faded, and this is very much Geoff Downes’s melodic-rock vehicle with a fine new singer up front. Approached on those terms, it’s an enjoyable, well-crafted 1990s AOR album, and arguably the best of the Payne-Downes era. Start with ‘Who Will Stop the Rain?’ and ‘Someday,’ and let the rest reveal itself.

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