So, this is not new news, but it is at least from this year! As I was posting the Yes item last month, I was also planning to post some news about Asia. Not the landmass, of course, but the supergroup who I last reviewed back in -- oh my, 2009! There've been 5 CDs released since then! (Though I could have sworn I reviewed XXX...*). Well, as with sooo many other artists here, I've a lot of catching up to do. And in part, that includes noting how the Asia lineup has shifted. Still with Asia is founding member Geoff Downes, of course, but he is now joined by John Mitchell on guitar (Lonely Robot, Frost*, It Bites, Arena... among others), Virgil Donati on drums (Planet X, Steve Vai, Erik Norlander,... the list goes on) and Harry Whitley on vocals and bass (from YouTube postings of his Asia covers, he was invited to cover vocals for a John Wetton charity tribute concert, and from there... he's here).

Because I've been out of the loop... sorta... I just learned that this had been reissued (Nov 22, 2024) in a remixed edition. So, I'm listening to the remixed single "Man Of A Thousand Faces" and I have to say it sounds great! Granted I am listening to it via Spotify, not the disc itself (or vinyl)... and while I did invest in some new quality computer speakers a year or two ago, this caveat is that I can imagine how it would sound on the "higher end" system -- fantastic. I am hearing details that I don't recall from before (though it's probably been a good... 20 years since I last played it*). That is, with a clarity I didn't hear before. Here's my review of the original 1997 release in case you missed it: This Strange Engine....

Coming out today, coincidentally, is the live release Live - Perpetual Change (Frontiers) by Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks. I say coincidentally because I am flipping through emails from the end of January and happened upon this item in (another) Louder/Prog Mag news update. That update was about a video released to promote Live - Perpetual Change, featuring the band performing "Your Move - I've Seen All Good People."

Talisman, the band founded and created by the late Marcel Jacob in 1989, have written, produced and recorded a new song entitled “Never Die (A Song for Marcel)” for their fallen brother who took his own life 10 years ago on July 21, 2009. Get the song here: orcd.co/talisman.

The video fo 'Never Die - A Song for Marcel Jacob' can be viewed here (and below): youtu.be/qUh0lcTC1I0.

Surviving members Jeff Scott Soto, Jamie Borger and Pontus Norgren penned the song as a tribute to Jacob as well as the legacy of music they created from 1990 - 2007.

Speaking of Mike Portnoy, the other project he is involved in, Sons Of Apollo, will be releasing MMXX on January 17 via InsideOut Music. This is their second studio release, following on the heels of the live release Live With The Plovdiv Psychotic Symphony (Aug 2019). You can watch a video for the first single, Goodbye Divinty below.

About the track, Mike Portnoy comments, "From the minute we finished writing 'Goodbye Divinity,' I knew we had our album opener and the first release off the album. I even remember posting on social media how excited I was about the song the day I tracked it! The song has an immediacy that grabs you right away: great riffs, flashy playing and hooky vocal melodies. All of the elements that make up the SOA sound.

Hard to believe we are already in the year 2020! Are we going to look back? Well, hindsight is 2020. So, yes, probably, but not here, not now.

Looking ahead to what 2020 will bring us in terms of new or reissued music, although we have the "facts" all listed in our "Release Calendar," because we get more info and quotes and such about these new releases, we wanted to pass along the "salient bits," as it were.

Let's start with The Neal Morse Band, who will release a live album on March 6 called The Great Adventour - Live In Brno 2019." This will be the first release under their new contract with InsideOut Music, who had released his second solo album It's Not Too Late in 2002, and 2015's The Grand Experiment.

UK progressive rock band Pallas are taking a look back at their past with the first in a series of archival releases, The Edge Of Time, to be released December 12, 2019 via Bandcamp only (at this time) available "in many formats including lossless, complete with a selection of alternate versions." But this not your typical archival release:

From the band's press release:

Italy's Frontiers label releases a wide variety of rock titles from AOR to Progressive Rock to Metal. In the next coming months, that is no different; we list them below. What caught our attention especially was the recent by Robert Berry, under the 3.2 moniker.

A ways back, 1988 to be exact, Robert Berry, along with the late Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer, released The Power Of Three as 3. The album yielded the single "Talkin' 'Bout," which reach #9 on Billboard Magazine's charts.

Fast forward to 2015, when, as the album info from Frontiers notes:

Ahead of the release of their new album, We Are Legend (which came out Friday, Apr 27), Magenta released a free EP through their Bandcamp page. Entitled Trojan, the EP features an edited version of "Trojan" (the album version is 26-minutes long) as well as "two remixes in the style of keyboardist and founding member Rob Reed’s Chimpan A project."

Also announcing that pre-orders are now being taken for a new release is Mistheria, whose new instrumental metal album Gemini will be released later this year - exact date still to be determined. In addition, the lineup has been announced, including guests:

Roger Staffelbach (Artension, Artlantica) - Guitar; Leonardo Porcheddu (Vitalij Kuprij) - Guitar; Ivan Mihaljevic (Side Effects) - Guitar; Steve Di Giorgio (Testament, Death) - Bass; Dino Fiorenza (Metatrone) - Bass; John Macaluso (Ark, Symphony X, Malmsteen) - Drums, and Mistheria (Bruce Dickinson, Rob Rock, Vivaldi Metal Project) - Keyboards. Special guests - Chris Caffery (Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Savatage) - Guitar and Roy Z (Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Tribe Of Gypsies) - Guitar.