So, there’s paying homage to the greats (which I get), but then there’s what Jimmie Hong is doing. In a musical landscape where “influence” usually means “we listened to Master of Puppets once,” Hong is quietly pulling off something far more radical: proving that a single, modern, globalized, multi-disciplinary artist may now have the capacity to out-create the very titans who shaped him.
This is the engine behind Wheel of Time, the Beijing-born progressive power metal project that Hong launched during a mentorship under former Megadeth guitarist Kiko Loureiro in 2022. This is the spirit running through Asymmetry, the project’s debut full-length album, released November 12. It is absolutely a piece of recorded architecture, arranged and spiritually engineered by one man who treats metal composition the way a film director treats cinema. Asymmetry draws its name from Hong’s philosophy: that beauty lives in imbalance—life, the universe, and the album. Nothing here is symmetrical, predictable, or safe. And that is precisely why it works. If Trans-Siberian Orchestra built a holiday empire around maximalism, WHEEL OF TIME feels like the next evolutionary step: a collaborative, high-precision, narrative-driven metal project bending genres and expectations.
Honestly, suppose you can play multiple instruments, compose top-to-bottom, weave Eastern and Western theory, and direct legends like Derek Sherinian, Tony MacAlpine, Michele Luppi, and Timo Tolkki into a coherent story—yes. In that case, you might actually be better than the bands you’re claiming to be influenced by because you’re doing their jobs plus several others.
After releasing the single “Grand Cosmos” and the EP The Enlightenment in 2023, Asymmetry became Hong’s opportunity to scale the vision outward. He teamed with ex-HAKEN musician Tom MacLean as producer and engineer. He coordinated an international cast of performers across “five continents and ten time zones—all while composing the entire album solo from his Beijing home studio.” It’s a process so singular that the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Popular Music will use WHEEL OF TIME as a 2025 case study in independent, global album production. Again: this is one guy doing what it used to take a label, a team of producers, and a globe-trotting band to accomplish.
Trying to narrow down the top three tracks that make this album vinyl-worthy reminds me that I entered college with a 2.5 GPA and only took three classes at a time. Here we go:
Track 2: “Freedom Day”- A tension-wound anthem built around internal imprisonment and release. Michele Luppi (Whitesnake) handles vocals, Sherinian returns on keys, and Hong’s guitar work carries the emotional breakthrough.
Track 4. “Addicted!…”-Power metal at high voltage, filtered through a dark Nick Cave-tinted lens. Featuring Timo Tolkki and another virtuoso Sherinian performance—some of which Hong reverse-engineered mid-mix for unexpected dynamism.
6. “The Night of Eternity”-A meditation on transformation inspired by Buddhist conceptions of time. Cosmic, uneasy, and drenched in Sherinian’s atmospheric keys.
You can order Wheel of Time’s Asymmetry at this location.
