Band : John Wetton
Album title : Raised In Captivity
Label : Frontiers Records
Distributor : Rough Trade Benelux
Release Date : 01/07/2011
Release : CD

If you have’t been locked up in some cave, or were stranded on a desert island for the last thirty odd years, you must have crossed the name John Wetton somewhere. This man started his career in the seventies with bans like King Crimson, Uriah Heep, and even Roxy Music, before founding the supergroup U.K.  In 1982 he joined another super group Asia;  He left Asia in 1983, and joined them again in 1985. After countless changes in the line up of Asia, the band dissolved, only to be reunited again in 2006. Besides John has been involved in lots of other bands and projects.

This is his sixth solo-album so far. Most of the instruments were played by Mr. Wetton who got assistance from multi-instrumentalist Billy Sherwood.  He also invited a lot of famous guests, like Steve Morse (Deep Purple), Steve Hackett (Genesis), Mick Box (Uriah Heep), Robert Fripp (King Crimson),  Anneke Van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering) and also Geoff Downes (Asia). Although I’ve never been that big a fan of Asia myself, this album is a notch better then an Asia album, and that’s mainly due to the fact that on this album Mr. Wetton manages to churn out some harder rock songs than we were used to on an Asia album, a fex exceptions notwithstanding. You cannot deny though that there are some Asia influences in the sound.

So it’s not a bad album, except one track, and that’s "Steffi’s Ring". Leave that off the album, and he’d have scored at least 10 points more.

80/100

Erik Morren.