YES

HIGH POINTS: Survival, Beyond And Before, Every Little Thing. LOW POINTS: I See You.

On their debut album, the classic Yes sound wasn't quite in place yet, as the overall style covered here owes more to folk and pop than actual progressive elements. The band's technical talent doesn't quite shine through to the maximum either - Bill Bruford gives probably the best performance on drums, but Chris Squire hadn't quite developed his aggressive, virtuosic bass style yet, and while Peter Banks and Tony Kaye (keys, guitar respectively) are certainly respectable players, they pale in comparison to who both would later be replaced by (read on!). Also, this first incarnation of Yes was very strong at melody and harmony (which really helps the songs become very good quality), and Jon Anderson's singing voice seems more open and emotional here, contrary to the 'toneless robot' vocal he'd employ on later albums (not that it was a bad thing), with more or less understandable lyrics (another rarity!)

Anyway, as far as the album goes, the songs here are generally very good quality. The opening "Beyond And Before" is a great startoff composition from Chris Squire and some other guy who co-wrote it, and it displays the trademarks of early Yes rather well - very harmonized, nice, not overbearing instrumental breaks, and a catchy melody. "Looking Around" has a simple but very distinct organ part, a catchy and clapalong melody, and fine bridge, all of which are utilized as hooks to draw the listener in quite easily. The ballads here are also nice, tender romantic statements with strong hooks in the softly sung "Yesterday And Today" (it's hard to believe this is the same Jon Anderson of later, but it's a very, very nice love song anyway) and especially "Sweetness", which has the most compelling melody on the album - a very nice and affecting song to sing along with.

Of course, even though this music is certainly not as complex as later, there are hints at a more artsy approach, particularly within the intros of the songs, with three tracks here in particular most demonstrating this. The military epic "Harold Land" has a cool intro and utilizes a pace-shifting instrumental arrangement, with a nice piano pop melody building all the way up to a 'war march' towards the end of the tune that matches with the sentiment of the lyrics rather well. And my favorite song of the album, the closing "Survival", is the most fully realized composition here - the arrangement is at its' most dynamic, with the fantastic intro, acoustic part, and first rate melody building up to a great chorus. The lyrics are also fascinatingly provocative on the subject of 'survival of the fittest', and they really work.

The third of these more complex songs is one of two 'covers' here, as one of The Beatles' lesser known tunes "Every Little Thing" gets a total rearrangement, with a long-winded and exciting jam that's actually longer than the original tune, and of course, with a fantastic vocal melody to work with, you'd expect that the overall result would be successful, and it is. Unfortunately, the other cover here isn't so - their rendition of The Byrds' "I See You" is mostly built to showcase their instrumental jams, and this is not something this incarnation of the band was exactly good at it, and the result is a bore. Nevertheless, the album does get a very, very solid 7.5 - it's quite a fun listen hearing Yes in their charming early stage, and the album overall is a consistent batch of songs despite not really having any knockout tracks on it. A good start here.

OVERALL RATING: 7.5

Yes in 1969 didn't sound a whole lot like Yes in 1972. At this point, the group hadn't decided that they wanna play really long, complex prog rock. They wanted to play mid-length, complex pop songs. Which is exactly what you'll get it you decide to plunk down your money for Yes the group's debut album. There are 8 songs on this record (quite a lot by Yes standards), and none of them are short solos or 20-minute epics - they range from about 3 minutes to about 6 minutes. Personally, I don't have a problem with this like some prog fans do - I like pop music as much as the next guy. And this is still some mighty complex pop music - long intro, complex vocal arrangements, all kinds of embellishments... It certainly shows that the band had the capability of turning into the band they turned into.

If your mind is still set on the classic Yes sound on here, I could point you to two tracks right away - the cover of the Beatles obscurity "Every Little Thing" and the cloing "Survival". Now, I've never heard the original, but I can't believe that the Beatles version sounded ANYTHING like this. A long little intro, tight harmonies, loud, crisp guitar playing (courtesy of Peter Banks, the group's original guitarist), and even a quick musical quote from "Day Tripper". The harmonies are superb, the arrangement is spectacular. It might be the best song on the record, and I don't even care if it's a cover. "Survival" isn't as successful, if you ask me. With it's long intro and complex music and lyrics, it sounds pretty close to Yes Album era Yes, but they didn't quite have the style down just yet. They got it better when they tried it on their next album, Time And A Word.

The other songs here aren't very Yes-sy (aside from Jon Anderson's unmistakable high-pitched vocals), but they're all really nice. "Beyond And Before" gets things off to an AWESOME start, with lots of great organs and charmingly naive lyrics, leading to a big climax and the song gradually fading away. Really good. Or "Harold Land", which starts as a dull war march before turning into a dark, complex, unbeleivably memorable war ballad with GREAT hooks at the end of each verse. Or God, how about "Looking Around", with lots more of that 60s organ sound and a very charming nature. I could go on about most of these songs - most of them are childish and complex and a lot of fun, and there are very few missteps here ("I See You" is a bit lengthy, though it certainly isn't bad, and "Sweetness" is pleasant, but not much more). You can get this record new for under 10 bucks, too, so give it a try.

OVERALL RATING: 8

HEY GUESS WHAT?!?!?!? I figured out where Styx got its main set of influences! This album! Yeah. That said, it still doesn't suck (for that matter, neither does Styx. Asshole.). I mean, there's some tunes, like "Beyond And Before" and "Survival" that Styx could never acheive. The former is a nice flowery psychedelic ballad with an infecting melody, and the latter is a mostly laid-back tune preceded by a driving rock intro, that many people have pointed towards as the first seed of the long-winded ambitions seen on such gems as Close To The Edge and Relayer. I guess I can back that claim, as well - I mean, hey, listen to those contrasting sections and all those little melodies floating on top of each other!

And the other cuts on here... um, yeah. Well, on the upside, we have a pretty short ballad, "Yesterday and Today" that, like most Yes songs, is backed by genuinely catchy verse and chorus melodies. "Looking Around"'s melodies, while catchy, are generally simple, but the chord progressions are genius! Definite precursor to the mind-boggling left turns of "Starship Trooper" and "Long Distance Runaround". And then there's "Every Little Thing". HA! This is the crap that bore Styx, for sure. Nah, I actually like the song. Call me cheesy! Hey, that jazz/rock intro sure is cool. But DAMN the verse lyrics are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GAY! Phew. "Sweetness" isn't that great but it's at least harmless. Now, on to what sucks. "I See You" sucks. The main song part is catchy, but it's a damn cover! The jazz part in the middle is laughable at best and shitty at worst. Right now, it's about at "crapulence". Oh yeah, and I hate "Harold Land" in it's entirety. 'Nuff said.

Anyway, what you have here is a nice eight-song sample of Yes in the early days, when ambition was low and Jon's voice was high. Huh? His voice was always high? Oh. Well, I suppose I should give the one a 7, but damnit I'm feeling generous. An 8 it is. Get this one. Don't, however, get this one before the other, essential stuff like Fragile and Close To The Edge; instead, get this one the same time you get Time And A Word. And then, put em in your little CD changer and sit down and bask in 90 minutes of MOSTLY good early Yesshit. Yesshit... has a nice ring to it.

OVERALL RATING: 8

TIME AND A WORD (1970)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Sweet Dreams, No Opportunity Necessary No Experience Needed, Time And A Word. LOW POINTS: The Prophet.

To be perfectly honest I'm not too sure if this is a step up or down from Yes. The orchestra works out well, and Squire is pulling out some awesome bass lines to be heard all throughout the album. The jams are more professional and entertaining than before, and the best stuff on this one beats the best from the first album. BUT there is a song on this one that can be called bad. "The Prophet" fails to live up to the rest on the album, with a really dull middle jam and an unsatisfying ending. A shame since without it or with a better song in its place this album could have easily gotten a 9.

"No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Required" starts out with a keyboard pound, that may have sounded awesome in 1970, but I'm sorry if in 2001 Going For The One has been around for a while, and my expectations for a Yes blast like that are "Parallels." It doesn't sound bad or anything, just a little weak compared to some future Yes works. It turns out to be one of the best songs on the album once it gets started. The line "Love is the only answer/Hate is the root of cancer" from the following "Then" really makes Jon Anderson seem somewhat normal, since after all the real crazy lyrics wouldn't show up until The Yes Album. Up next is "Everydays," another fine tune with a great jam in it. Then it's "Sweet Dreams," my favorite on the whole album. It's a happy song, and one with the ability to rub its happiness off on the listener, just like "Good Day Sunshine." I absolutely love it, and you should too.

After "The Prophet" opens the second side we get "Clear Days," a ballad just as good as either of the two from the debut, but it's also got some odd symphonic work with it, and the short length is a little on the disappointing side. I like it, though. "Astral Traveller" is really complex and crazy with another one of those great jams in it. The title track is very catchy and pretty with one of the band's better choruses. Out of every song on the album the orchestration probably works best there, especially during the ending and fading out of the song. This album is more art rock than prog rock, but it does improve on some of the debut's shortcomings, and makes a couple mistakes too. Time And A Word is no masterpiece, but it serves an excellent warm-up release before the string of classics that would soon follow.

OVERALL RATING: 8

HIGH POINTS: No Opportunity Necessary No Experience Needed, Time And A Word, The Prophet, Sweet Dreams. LOW POINTS: Clear Days.

We have a typical transition album here, as on their sophomore effort, Yes found themselves getting closer and closer to their trademark prog rock style, as this one exhibits somewhat more of its' characteristics than the debut. The arrangements are somewhat more sophisticated, the lyrics are getting a bit more cryptic in that Andersonian way, and the musicianship is getting more complex. And of course, there's the mother of all pretentions - they actually attempt to integrate orchestration within the sound in the excessive art rock tradition (which unfortunately contributes to burying Peter Banks' guitar in the mix, as outside of occasional solos he isn't all that audible, which probably contributed to his departure). So yeah, these are the first real signs of true art rock glory. And you know what? I believe this album to be very underrated (the most overlooked in their catalog, in fact), probably due to its' transitional status.

In starting what would be come a Yes tradition, the opening song here is a really big statement, and what a breathtaking one it is. It's actually another cover version, this time a real obscurity in Richie Havens' "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed", and here is where the orchestra really works. The big, sweeping arrangement coupled with the lightning fast bass playing at the beginning by Chris Squire really bring the song the momentum it needs, and it's instrumentally, it's a highly energetic experience. The title track also ensures that the album gets a thoroughly satisfying conclusion - it's probably one of the best pop oriented tunes of their career, as it certainly as the strongest melody on the album, and the final refrain is breathtakingly beautiful, able to stick in one's head long after it ends.

"Sweet Dreams" is also another quite fine pop song, with a really really catchy verse melody and a great bassline throughout, contributing to the more lightweight and pretty side of the album that sits in between the more overblown stuff. And among the 'overblown' pieces, I'm going to stick up for one of the most consistently bashed tunes in the Yes catalog - yup, I'm talking about "The Prophet". It's definitely the most pompous and epic tune of the set, especially with the long organ intro that features what I believe to be some of Tony Kaye's best work in his career, and this is also one of the points where the orchestration really brings a fantastic, breathtaking sweep to the melody. Another minor highlight would include "Astral Traveller", an interesting and mysterious spacey tune, with a neat vibrating vocal effect in the chorus and cool unorthodox melody. Nice guitar soloing in there as well.

The remaining three songs on here are definitely less spectacular, but with the exception of the rather weak and forgettable "Clear Days" (a somewhat dippy 2 minute filler that relies entirely on the sappy side of the orchestration and melody), they're not really bad or anything. The other cover here "Everydays" has more of a hard-hitting and precise feeling throughout to contrast the orchestrated verses, and "Then" is interesting for its' effectively tense mood with frantic drum playing in the chorus and some of the most straightforward lyrics you'll ever hear from Jon Anderson (those would disappear very soon). So there you have it - maybe this album isn't as epic as the following ones, but there's quite a lot of great melody, excitement and charm that makes me prefer it to some of the more notorious efforts.

OVERALL RATING: 8

Yes's follow up to their eponymous debut basically had the same type of sound as the debut, with one major difference - their producer overdubbed an orchestra over all of the tunes in an attempt for Days Of Future Passed-esque artsiness. The only problem is that the orchestra here doesn't really seem to be part of the music - it almost seems like an afterthought or a way to spice up slightly inferior material. These songs would hardly sound any different without the orchestra. While the orchestra never really detracts from the album, it never helps. Oh well. Now, as for the actual SONGS here, they're almost as good as the ones on the last album. There's only one MAJOR mistake here, and it's the all-orchestral "Clear Days". It sounds like the ballads on the last album with all of the melody and charm sucked out. Oh well, at least it's short. "The Prophet" isn't exactly spectacular, either. It's just too long and aimless. And "Astral Traveller" has some neat jamming in it, but again, the melody is just subpar. AND it rips off "Then", a far superior rocker from earlier on in the album.

The thing is, though, when the songs here are good, they're generally better than the ones on the last album. The MAJOR highlight here is "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed", a cover of a Richie Havens song with an orchestral arrangement that actual aids the song (for once). It's a really uplifting, exciting tune. One of the best tunes Yes EVER recorded, in fact. The title track is really, really good, too. It's extremely hippy-dippy (the refrain is "There's a time and the time is now and it's right for me, it's right for me, and the time is now! There's a word and the word is love and it's right for me, it's right for me, and the word is love!"), but the tune is really odd, with lots of cool chord changes and a groovy orchestral bit at the end as the tune fades out. And hey, the other songs here are generally really good too (especially the creepy Steven Stills cover "Everydays"). So, if you liked the last album, get this one too. Don't get it first, though.

OVERALL RATING: 7

Ya know, I really went about the reviewing of Yes albums all wrong. I started with their pinnacle (Close To The Edge), then went backwards (Fragile, The Yes Album). And now, with Time And A Word, I reach back even further. It's interesting though, to see where Jon Anderson's writing style came from and how it developed. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I was reviewing an album! Time And A Word, to be exact. Well, here we go! First of all, I will mention that this is probably the last Yes album for a long time in which most of the songs are actual SONGS, ya know, verse-chorus-verse-choruse-middle eight-chorus-end. Novel idea, huh? Even if the song parts, such as the middle section, might be a bit bloated at times. But hey, this is Yes. If you don't like bloated music, I'm sure there's a Chuck Berry review somewhere for ya.

"No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Required" beings with a few nice organ chords, which are repeated in the orchestra, and then... wait a goddamned minute!! An ORCHESTRA?!?!?! Why, oh why, did these guys do this? Their instrumental skill was just fine. They don't need a friggin' orchestra to sound good. Ugh. Anyway, "Opportunity" has a nice groove and a helluva melody, especially at the part that goes, "Can tell your mama, she'd only tell ya, that she told ya so..." A real standout on the track, and most of the latter ones actually, is Squire's simply amazing bass abilities. You'll see what I mean, trust me. "Then" begins with a funky organ groove going through the verse that dissolves into a smooth chorus. And, again, DAMN! another EXCELLENT melody in the chorus. In the same way that Days Of Future Passed is, this one right here is chock full of catchy tunes. Anyway, good song, even though part of the insturmental bridge sounds like James Bond music.

"Everydays" is a lounge-jazzy tune, and you can really hear Jon trying to be all jazzy, and it actually kinda works, believe it or not. Just kinda though. And for once, the orchestra ADDS something to the mix... it really sounds good! And the middle section is a fast guitar wankfest, then the jazzy section comes back to close it out. And "Sweet Dreams" is fucking awesome. "These things will always last" is a damn fine piece of melody, as is the chorus melody. Usually one should not emulate the Beatles, but these guys do it well and with ease. Next is "The Prophet" and... eh, it ain't too good. A Tony Kaye organ wankoff starts it off; I don't know what the fuck he was on when he wrote/played it, but it sucks all kinds of ass. Thankfully the actual SONG is kinda catchy, bar that big band-sounding middle eight. "Clear Days" is soft, short, and forgettable. The only part that sticks out is that string quartet fade-out. EEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW!

"Astral Traveller", with that trippy effect on the vox, probably would be interesting to experience under the influence of psychedelics. Not to mention the interplay between the organ and the guitar in the middle solo section. And to finish things off, perhaps one of Yes' best songs, "Time And A Word". Wow, the chorus of this one is THE best choruses I've ever heard, hands down. And the verse ain't too shabby either, starting on that unsettled dominant chord, changing through all kinds of loosely related chords, finally landing on that B major chord beginning the chorus. "There's a time, and the time is now and it's right for me... It's right for me, and the time is now... There's a word, and the word is love and it's right for me... It's right for me, and the word is love..." That, my friends, is the happiest line in any song EVER, written by the king of giddy happiness, Jon Anderson.

And of course, it's paired with a perfect melody. After hearing this song for the first time, I was friggin' floored by its' perfection. At the risk of saying "perfect" too much, I will say that this is the absolute best SONG in a pop sense, EVER. And to sum up, buy this album, if ONLY for the title track. Sorry if I sound a little too, er, giddy, but hey, I just got done listening to a Yes album. It's a job hazard.

OVERALL RATING: 9

THE YES ALBUM (1971)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Starship Trooper, Yours Is No Disgrace, Perpetual Change, The Clap. LOW POINTS: None.

This is where it started. For me, at least. This was my first Yes album and I loved it (or most of it actually) on first listen. Everyone pretty much knows that this was the beginning of their big overblown progressive career, and nearly everyone acknowledge's its historical significance in one way or another. Most people consider it a good or great prog album, but for me this is tied with Relayer for the second best album Yes ever did (to Close To The Edge) and one of my absolute favorites. The Yes Album is either perfect or damn near it. The opening "Yours Is No Disgrace" is often criticized for having too little in the way of structure and meandering from here to there with no real purpose. I can understand where this idea comes from. Compared to a song like "Roundabout" from the next album it may seem a bit disorganized, and the lyrics are crazier than ever ("shining flying purple wolf hound show me where you are"). So complain about it if you want to but if you're looking for a masterful prog mini-epic, then this is the track for you. For a long time it was my sole favorite on the album, and still I consider it one of the greatest songs the band has ever done. An epic progressive masterpiece, and a perfect mood setter for the rest of the album.

Next is the live track "The Clap" where Steve Howe plays one of the most technically amazing acoustic guitar pieces of all time. It's not just that either. Some say that it is nothing more than a show off track, and again I have to disagree. I find it musically incredible as well, showing all around creativity and complexity adding up to another classic track. The first side closer, "Starship Trooper," is widely regarded by fans as the strongest track on the album, and I must agree with them on this one. It's a three part song (the parts being "Life Seeker", "Disillusion", and "Wurm"), each one getting better than the last. The opening is a fantastic bit with simply astounding vocal melodies. The second half is another demonstration of Howe's great guitar abilities in a less complex much faster piece than "The Clap." However as great as these parts are it is the final "Wurm" section that makes "Starship Trooper" one of the finest songs of all time. It is very likely the finest coda in the history of rock music, and undeniably one of the most powerful pieces ever. It starts out as three very simple chords repeated over and over, then the other instruments slowly come in and give a fine jam for a while before Howe takes the stage with more great solos to fade out with. "Wurm" also makes "Starship Trooper" one of the greatest live songs ever allowing the band to do excellent jams during the numerous live versions.

For a long time I didn't listen to the second side much. Whenever I did I liked it, just nowhere near as much as the first side. For a while I figured rewinding side one was more worth the effort than flipping the tape over. This changed, of course, and mostly because of "Perpetual Change." It's the closing track as well as the third epic on the album. It's probably the craziest song they'd do until Relayer; many parts are glued together with crazy lyrics and works perfectly for reasons that I can't really explain. It all fits very nicely.

The others on side two are the band's second best progressive radio hit (to "Roundabout") "I've Seen All Good People," divided into two parts. The first one, "Your Move," is full of more nutty lyrics and some really neat melodies. Then comes "All Good People" which is just a repeating of the line "I've seen all good people turn their heads each way so satisfied I'm on my way" quite a many times. Normally this would drive me completely insane, but you would be surprised how many different ways you can repeat a different line with a great musical background. Then there's "A Venture," which has a similar feel to "Your Move," and also brings up my only problem with the album; it's way too short! It's about the some length as "The Clap," yet leaves me wishing it had a few more minutes to it. Oh, well. It's only a small complaint and "A Venture" is still a great song.

The Yes Album is both one of the great progressive rock classics and one of those prog albums that must be owned in order to fully understand the genre (along with others like Thick As A Brick and, of course, In The Court Of The Crimson King). I say go get it now (unless you hate progressive rock, of course). It fits easily on to any desert island albums list I would make.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

HIGH POINTS: Yours Is No Disgrace, Starship Trooper, I've Seen All Good People. LOW POINTS: A Venture.

The big breakthrough, as this is the moment where the Yes we all know and love started to rear their ugly head (though a few songs on the last album definitely led up to it). Indeed, there are a couple of big changes here, the first of these being the somewhat extended song lengths - there are still a couple of shorter numbers here, but this time, they almost feel like interludes in the context of the more monolithic epics here, which are extremely well arranged, with flawless, technically awe-inspiring playing all over the place, and crazy musical ideas (the Anderson lyrics are also starting to go off the deep end). Another big change is that Steve Howe has entered the picture, and he brings a somewhat country-ish influence into the band, with fast guitar licks here and there, and a distinctive tone to boot.

His presence is immediately felt in the first 'epic', the 9 minute opener "Yours Is No Disgrace", a number so mindblowing that has made its' way into my top 3 Yes songs of all time, especially since the overall flow of the song absolutely rules. The intro features amazing interplay between Howe, Squire and Kaye, from the pounding opening guitar riff leading into a simplified but effective organ part and opening synth thing to exceptionally virtuosic bass and guitar lines. And the vocal portions are just about as good, with some of the wackiest examples of Jon Anderson lyrics there are (the 'purple wolfhound' line among others) and the way the same lyrics and vocal melody get repeated in various musical settings, including an addictive jazzy bass groove, works extremely well, and how cool is that ending, where it sounds as if the bass and keys are flooooooooating up in the air? Excellent stuff.

The other 9 minute track here is one of the most enduring live favorites and celebrated songs in their career, and it's very easy to see why "Starship Trooper" gets this honor. Divided into three parts, it's a simply masterful mini epic. The first portion (Life Seeker) has a gloriously uplifting guitar part, and when Anderson sings 'sister bluebird... flying high aboooove', it just adds to the majesty, and the second portion (Disillusion) is just a really cool burst of fast acoustic playing (an area where Howe rules, of course). But the final part (Wurm) is the real crowning moment here, as it's truly one of the greatest codas of all time - it basically consists of the band jamming over a really simple but extremely distinctive guitar part over and over, and it's turned into a completely breathtaking experience that would later be even better in a live setting. It's still classic here, though.

The smash hit "I've Seen All Good People" certainly takes an interesting approach to the form, too. It's pretty much a two part piece, with the first one being the acoustic 'Your Move', which is quite a beautiful pop-oriented portion, with a very nice melody and stirring vocal performance, and the second is the main section of the song where the line 'I've seen all good people turn their heads each day so satisfied, I'm on my way' gets repeated over and over in mantra-like fashion, and with the varied musical backing, it's very effective. Somewhat more so than the final epic here, "Perpetual Change", which is one of the few Yes epics that has never really managed to excite me a whole lot. It does have its' breathtaking moments - the middle jam where all the instruments merge together in a crazy fusion, plus the jazzy 'inside out, outside in, every day!' melody is nice, but overall, the arrangement is somewhat overlong (especially at the end), and it lacks enough thrill for me as compared to the better songs here.

Likewise, the two shorter songs on here aren't really all that inspiring. They're certainly not awful, but neither of them are exactly substantial. The Steve Howe acoustic guitar piece "The Clap" is impressive in its' professional live-sounding flow, but there are so much better and more exciting examples of how talented the man is than this. The dull "A Venture", which is sort of a music hall pop tune with a slightly annoying hook, really doesn't possess all that much noteworthy to it, and kind of just screams out 'filler'. Nevertheless, these weaker tracks are listenable and decent - they just seem kinda 'ehh' in the company of the big epics. This is certainly the most innovative Yes release in defining how powerful their newfound lands could be, but for me, as excellent as it is, The Yes Album is really just a blueprint for the even greater successes of the next two albums.

OVERALL RATING: 8.5

Ah yes, NOW we're getting into the Yes that everyone knows and loves. Peter Banks is out at this point and forevermore, and Steve Howe is in. Now, far be it for me to make statements this subjective, but Steve Howe might just be the most technically gifted guitar player ever. He doesn't really show off all that much on this album, though. In fact, he just sounds like Peter Banks more often than not. Still, his influence (or Peter Banks' lack of influence) is felt on this album. Three of the songs crash over the nine minute barrier, two are multipart, and one is a solo. Sounds like Yes all right. When most people think of Yes, this is the exact style that comes to mind. Another thing that often comes to mind is "I've Seen All Good People", one of Yes's more famous hit singles (around where I live, it gets played even more than "Roundabout" and "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" even). It absolutely gorgeous. The first part is a happy little chant, and the second part is a tricky little guitar rock bit, but it's all just spectacular. I'd talk about it more, but talking about one song forever is boring, so I'll just say this - if you haven't heard this song, listen to it NOW and just you TRY not to be impressed (unless you're my father, in which case you hate the song with a passion).

The rest is just about as good, though! Let me try to tell you about it while not mentioning and describing every song here... well, all the songs are pretty happy sounding except for one (the creepier low-key "A Venture", the shortest song here). They're all long and very complex and have lots of cool guitar parts. They all have Chris Squire's increasingly fat, awesome bass tone. They all have Jon Anderson wailing nonsense over them like some deranged lunatic ("Shining flying purple wolfhound show me where you are" is just one of many examples). All of them pretty much rule. The only real problem that I have with any of this is that a couple of the songs have a couple of slow moments ("Perpetual Change" is just a smidge too long, as is the otherwise awesome "Yours Is No Disgrace"). But when you're listening to the album, you'll hardly even notice them. That and the fact that "A Venture" really isn't all that good keep the album from getting the full ten, but it comes close anyway.

OK, I promised I wouldn't mention too many actual songs or describe them, but you just HAVE to hear about the instrumental coda from "Starship Trooper". It starts really quiet, but gets louder and louder around this very simple, yet gripping chord sequence. It all builds and builds with cool keyboard lines and some neat drumming from Bill Bruford until it EXPLODES into an awesome Steve Howe guitar solo. It's one of the coolest crecendos I've ever heard. And it'll be one of the coolest crecendos YOU ever hear. So hear it already! Even though I can't twist your arm (after all, you're sitting in one part of the world on your computer, while I'm far, far away), I highly recommend you purchase this album.

OVERALL RATING: 9

While many see this album as a gigantic leap from the sunny psychedelic rock of the first two Yes albums, I really cannot agree. There is a definite leap, don't get me wrong. But in The Yes Album, I can really see the progress from Time And A Word as a linear entity, not a huge exponential upswing. True, the new blood at guitar, Steve Howe, really brings a new direction to the Yes sound that is already mutating, and the songs are starting to really stretch out. "I've Seen All Good People", for instance, could have worked just fine as two separate tracks on earlier albums. But NOOOO, these guys just had to juxtapose the airy acoustic strumming and tight harmonies of "Your Move" with the boogie beat and insanely repetitive mantra of "All Good People"!!!! Well, FINE BY ME!!! I love this tune, not because it is some musical behemoth, but because it is a fun-as-hell, cheery sing-a-long that makes no sense!!

But that is not the real reason I am drawn to this album like a fly to shit. Nope, that would be "Starship Trooper". Quintessential Yes, this is. Three very distinct song parts come together here, the guitar/bass-heavy slow rock of "Life Seeker", the acoustic romp "Disillusion" (which really comes to life live!), and the oozing crescendo of "Wurm", which I find to be rather atypical of Yes, but it is a section that, despite the Zeppelin-esqe multiple overdubs, really glistens. And that chord progression really is genius in its' simplicity. Onto the other biggie that I can't get enough of, "Yours Is No Disgrace". What seems like a simple, short rock-oriented chord progression starts to mutate into a light shuffle and back into the original tempo for a minor-key Howe guitar showcase. And showcase he does! In my opinion, the already-bloated song length could have stood for another minute or so of Howe's acrobatics. Thankfully, this would often occur at live shows, including the one I went to on JULY 25, 2002!!!! Also, check out the House of Blues live album for a good extended solo. Anyway, the song is worth listening to all the way through for the chromatic scales all over the ending. Damn, I love it.

As for the other monster, "Perpetual Change" was a tune that at first I couldn't really get into. The whole thing just seemed a bit forced at first, but then I realized that the real allure of this tune isn't in the song structure or melody (which are both kind of mediocre); it's in the nuances of the song. For instance, Howe's solo at about 4 minutes in. As a counterpoint to his heavy playing in the other biggies, this is a very relaxed jazz solo; his guitar tone is so round and clean, also a big contrast to the crunch of "Starship Trooper" and "All Good People". Woohoo! Also, the fade between the angular "fast-notes-in-unison" section and the verse chords is at once noticable, yet subtle and never offends.

And to round out the album, two tracks not totaling six minutes were thrown in for some reason. One would guess filler, but if this is filler, I don't want the real stuff! "Clap" is a hell of a composition for one guitarist to play, I don't care who you are. And "A Venture" manages to both convey a haunting atmosphere and show off keyboardist Tony Kaye, believe it or not. So that's that. The Yes Album ranks among my absolute favorites, for reasons that I have just spent the last 45 minutes typing about. An archetypal album for Yes, in that it shows the band's mastery of several different types of sounds, their overall musicianship, and by looking behind (and ahead), The Yes Album gives us an idea of the type of musical progress the band can make between albums. Also, IT FUCKING ROCKS!!!!

OVERALL RATING: 9

(Alex Harris' review)

The Yes Album, Yes's unimaginatively titled "breakthru" album, is a great introduction to what would become the "Yes Sound"; it was the first album that the sustain-hating guitarist Steve Howe played on, and many of the other trademark tone colors of the band are present thruout (such as Jon Anderson's voice and unusual lyrics and Chris Squire's distorted bass guitar). I kinda like Tony Kaye's organ playing, even if it can get old after a while (note: this was his last album with Yes for 12 years), and Bill Bruford's drumming is always enjoyable. (Ever notice how it's impossible to review Yes without naming every single member? I guess that's what you get with a band with five distinctive musical personalities.)

The excellent "Yours Is No Disgrace" (probably the album's best song) opens the album. Somehow, Yes manages to make every weird key change sound normal and inevitable (most sections of the song are either in E or Bb and tend to modulate directly between the two), and despite the dark lyrics ("Crawling out of dirty holes,their morals disappear"), "YIND" sounds almost impossibly bright and colorful most of the way thru. Guitarist Steve Howe's solo acoustic guitar piece "Clap" follows, taken from a live recording, and I like it a lot when I'm in the mood for it, but otherwise it doesn't interest me much. (My copy also has an Unreleased Studio Version as a bonus track, and there are some interesting differences with the Official Live Version.) "Starship Trooper", aka "The Song With That Guitar Effect" (it sounds to me like a flanger, but I could be wrong), is divided into three parts, each of which I'll discuss separately. "Life Seeker" continues in the same red-yellow-and-blue vein as "Yours Is No Disgrace", but is much more relaxed and not as fast; it's also included on its own as a bonus track on my copy. "Disillusion" has a little acoustic guitar part for a while, but mostly just sounds like a continuation of "Life Seeker" (which it basically is). Finally, I find "Würm" to be highly overrated; the slow buildup is really interesting, but the "pay-off" is incredibly inadequate for such a long build-up (for one thing, it fades out not long after starting), and Procol Harum's "Simple Sister" is in my opinion a far superior version of this concept.

"I've Seen All Good People", which really annoys my mom to no end, is another good song. It's divided into the "Your Move" and "All Good People" sections, but both sections work better together as a whole than on their own (I do prefer the second part to the first part, even if the first part *was* the part released as a single). "A Venture" is the obligatory short pop song of the album, and I really don't like it that much (sorry). Finally, the closing "Perpetual Change" is highly underrated. A lot of people bash it for being repetitive, but I don't really see where the problem is, other than that it sounds kinda hypnotic (partly due to a lot of it being in 3/4 time, a highly unusual time signature for any rock music). Personally, I like the tune a lot; it's catchy, weird, and was probably the song that convinced me that I should get this album.

The main problem with The Yes Album would be a lack of much emotional resonance at all for the most part. The songs are often catchy and usually sound bright and/or dreamy, but none of the songs on here are particularly "touching" (to me at least), nor do they really rock out much (except for *maybe* "Yours Is No Disgrace"). However, I think that even with this problem this is a good starting point for acquiring Yes albums, since it's much more accessible than a lot of their later work but still definitely sounds like Yes. (Then again, I don't have a large portion of their catalogue, so I shouldn't really say anything about it.)

OVERALL RATING: 8

COMMENTS

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Well, I only own Fragile, but i've heard parts of this one. Yes as musicians are superb, can't really complain there, but Jon Anderson...ick. And people think Geddy Lee has a bad voice. This guy is the epitomy of horrible vocalists. Its actually too bad cause when you have a band with Steve Howe, Chris Squire, and Bill Bruford on the instruments, you simply cannot help but write great melodies. Fragile I consider great because despite Mr. Anderson's (heh, remind you of some movie?) attempt at destroying the music with his androgenous wailings, the melodies and song structures are just too amazing to ignore. This album (as most other progressive albums) does not come close in that area, and therefore I have to give it a 6. By the way, bear in mind that I am a Rush fan, so yes, there is bias here, but its only because of the lead vocalist; otherwise i have nothing but respect for the band.

FRAGILE (1972)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Heart Of The Sunrise, South Side Of The Sky, Roundabout, Mood For A Day. LOW POINTS: None.

This is the album that wins Yes' "People Say It's Their Best But It Is NOT" award. Many of the major Internet reviewers, the All Music Guide, and a whole bunch of Yes fans all consider this to be Yes' finest hour and I just can't share that opinion. Sure it's a near-perfect album, most seventies Yes albums were. I just cannot say that Yes never topped Fragile while knowing that they also released The Yes Album the year before, and Close To The Edge and Relayer a little while after. All three of those albums pound this one into the ground, although Fragile may be the place you'd want to start with the band.

Fragile has an interesting layout to it. There are three epic tracks and one not-so-epic prog track connected by a whole bunch of neat little solo pieces. Call them filler if you want to, and hell maybe they are, but if the solo bits are filler it's probably the best filler ever. Filling songs can be good, you know. Look at Iron Maiden's "Genghis Khan," of the finest metal instrumentals ever and the best song on the Killers album. In one of the "Listen With Nicko" spoken tracks the Iron Maiden drummer says "Oh yes, 'Genghis Khan,' that was sort of a filling song." Heh. I only found that out recently and am still rather surprised by it. That was a little off subject, sorry. As for the epic tracks and the not-so-epic track, they rank among the best songs the band ever did. "Roundabout" is the biggest prog hit they ever had, and it's a great and complex song. I especially love the dark middle section there, something I was disappointed to find missing on the later symphonic version. Wouldn't it have been a neat twist to hear a cello or some horns play that section?

"South Side Of The Sky" is beautiful and haunting, with some incredible work on the keyboards from new member Rick Wakeman. I can't be entirely sure about this statement since there have been some really great keyboardists out there (Keith Emerson comes to mind, for one), but Rick Wakeman just might be my bet for the best keyboardist ever. He gives some solid reasons why on "South Side Of The Sky," which is also considered the best song on the album by quite a few fans, and it comes really close to being it. I think it isn't quite as good as "Heart Of The Sunrise," an even more powerful epic containing a couple of great instrumental sections and some of my favorite Anderson vocal work. The not-so-epic track is the second big radio hit from Fragile,"Long Distance Runaround." Needless to say this song is another classic.

As for the solo pieces, most of them are quite nice. "Cans And Brahms," Wakeman's piece, is a short and sweet noodling on the keyboard that is much more fun than you'd think. "We Have Heaven," Anderson's piece, is THE track you want if you have any desire to torture an Anderson-hater. Not only is he singing all of the parts, the lyrics backing the entire piece are "Tell the moon dog, tell the march hare" repeated many times, while a few other crazy vocal sections are going on at the same time. I love it. A really quick reprise comes back at the end of the album after "Heart Of The Sunrise" to give Fragile a perfect ending. "Five Percent For Nothing," Bruford's piece, is commonly considered to be the weakest of the solo bits, and I have to agree. Not that it's bad, just underlong. When I think of what could have been developed given a minute or two more...

"The Fish," Squire's piece, is a bunch of bass melodies allthrown on top of each other created quite a pleasant surprise. Finally "Mood For A Day," Howe's piece and the longest of them all (a mighty three minutes), is possibly the best one on here. The guitar melody is really beautiful and played expertly by one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Whenever I listen to these solo pieces I find them too complex and well thought out to be considered filler, and you must hear your instrument's piece if you play one of these. Fragile is a classic, and I might even like it more than many of those who call it the band's best, even if I can't share the opinion about it being Yes' finest hour. The band is working excellently together, and I often end up having a debate with myself on whether Fragile or Relayer is Squire's best performance. If you like progressive rock you do need this album, and if you are curious about Yes, start right here.

OVERALL RATING: 9.5

HIGH POINTS: Heart Of The Sunrise, Long Distance Runaround, Roundabout, South Side Of The Sky, Mood For A Day, The Fish. LOW POINTS: None.

Although the last two albums showcased Yes metamorphisizing into a great art rock fit, it seems that it took one element of the sound to finally get the songwriting over the edge and into greatness - keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who replaced the professional though not exactly exciting Tony Kaye. Wakeman brings a classically trained approach that is just as considerably virtuosic as the other members of the band. It's not so much apparent on here, but it would be very soon. His influence is also felt in the potentially problematic fact that in order to cover the costs of his extensive equipment, the album had to be recorded very quickly. Naturally, this meant the band didn't have that much material ready for the album, but in between the increasingly epic songs, they found a clever way to compensate for it. And that was to incorporate solo bits for each member within the track listing.

Looking down the track listing, it's easy to assume that these short pieces serve as little more than filler that disrupt the flow of the album, but in reality it's the exact opposite - these bits serve as excellent contrast serving as fantastic interludes to the long epic pieces. "Cans And Brahms" finds Rick Wakeman plays a nice, short excerpt from a Brahms classical piece, "We Have Heaven" sees Jon Anderson layer a few vocal tracks to create the fantastic effect of him singing 'tell the moon dog tell the march hare' over and over in harmony with himself. Only Bill Bruford's 35 second drum blurb "Five Per Cent For Nothing" is kinda half-assed and unmemorable, but Chris Squire and Steve Howe more than make up for that with their respective pieces "The Fish (Schindeleria Praemataurus)" and "Mood For A Day", easily the highlights of the 'solo' portion.

Squire's bit in particular showcases the interesting tones and possibilities of his bass by layering several tracks of them playing simultaneously, and while it may not be the most complicated effect in the world, the overall result of it sounds just so amazingly cool. The groove is catchy as hell (especially when Jon comes in singing the subtitle of the song) and it's played at a great, fast and exciting pace. In contrast, Howe's "Mood For A Day" is quite subdued, but it's all the better for it. The acoustic guitar provides an extremely relaxing mood to an otherwise kinda dark album, but what really makes it so impressive is how the pretty guitar melodies flow so incredibly well into each other, which is enough to make it some of the most 'moody' and breathtaking instrumental work I've ever heard.

Speaking of 'moody and breathtaking', now that I've discussed the solo bits in detail, it's the longer epics (plus one shorter pop tune) that really elevate the album to classic status. The opening "Roundabout" is definitely the most celebrated of these, and for good reason. Steve Howe's acoustic intro is one of the most memorable in rock history (especially with that fade in 'ping!' at the beginning), the main bassline once the song moves into the verse rules, the vocal melody is one of the catchiest things in the entire Yes catalog, the lyrics are among the most entertaingly meaningless of Jon Anderson's career ('mountains come out of the sky... and stand there!'), and the percussion at the bridge by Bruford is quite amazing.

After the door all of a sudden slams shut on the previously mentioned "We Have Heaven" (one of the coolest transitions on any album ever) we get the second epic here, "South Side Of The Sky". At first, it doesn't seem like there's much to it, but the powerfully cold and isolated feel to the overall lyrics and melody (with the wind blowing to start and end the track as an additional effect) gets it off on the right foot. The instrumentation is just as killer as ever, but what really makes it an unabashed success is the moody harmony-filled middle section (the 'la la la la la la...' portion) augmented by a breathtaking piano solo from the new guy Rick Wakeman. It's great stuff, as is the second best tune on here in my mind, the much more poppy "Long Distance Runaround", another radio staple. Wakeman really makes this song work again, with his lightning fast piano intro leading into a fully formed, attractively melodic and overall exciting progressive arrangement all compressed into 3-1/2 minutes, intriguing lyrics and all.

To close off the album, though, they possibly save the very best for last. "Heart Of The Sunrise" is also the longest track here at over 11 minutes, and it is a stunner. This is when you really realize you're dealing with some insanely talented musicians, as the extremely fast bassline and main riff to the tune provides a total thrill, and the way it keeps switching back and forth from fast to the slow piano/bass guitar interplay is absolutely amazing. The rest of the song itself keeps going through really difficult twists and turns musically, and Jon Anderson, who many people dismiss as a soulless and robotic singer, just gives it incredible conviction - the way he just belts out the lines 'SHARP! DISTANCE!' is one of the most powerful moments of the whole album. I don't know if any other singer could have pulled it off this effectively.

After the whole unpredictable thrill ride, they come up with a really clever way to close the album on. At the 10-1/2 minute mark, the song seemingly ends, but it's unexpectedly followed by the sound of a door opening and a reprise of the aforementioned "We Have Heaven", a brilliant and celebratory change of pace. No better ending could have been devised here for what I used to consider the best Yes album ever. The next album, though, has grown on me just somewhat more to the point where it's moved into the top 10 of all time, but in many ways, Fragile is a more defining work from the band in terms of instrumental power and very clever ideas (also a recommended starting point for casual listeners), and it just serves as a great representative of what a few musicians with brains can accomplish with limited time and considerable ambition. An absolutely immortal classic.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

Tony Kaye is out on this album and Rick Wakeman is in, thus completing the "classic" Yes lineup that only managed to release two albums. You know, I shouldn't even be reviewing this album now, since I'm listening to the Sex Pistols right now, and Yes and the Sex Pistols were, like, arch enemies. But still, I dig 'em both a lot, so why the hell not, eh? This album was recorded in a hurry (Wakeman needed lots of fancy keyboard equipment, and they needed to pay it off quickly, so they jammed an album out), and as a result, it sounds a bit disjointed. There are only four real songs here (three long ones and a shorter one), rounded out by five short band member solos. Self indulgent? You betcha!

The thing is that all of these tunes, be they songs or solo jams, work very, very well. The solos certainly aren't extremely melodic (except for Howe's gorgeous classical guitar piece "Mood For A Day"), but they all prove just how much this particular incarnation of Yes ruled. Rick Wakeman does a cool pseudo-classical bit on the keyboards, Jon Anderson does a sweet, catchy, uplifting vocal overdub-fest called "We Have Heaven", Bill Bruford does a very short, awkward, but still groovy as hell drum-and-organ thingamajig, and Chris Squire... wow. He does this thing called "The Fish", which is just all these cool bass overdubs jamming over each other just to show how awesome the bass guitar can be. And he certainly achieves his goal! It rules!

But, as cool as those solos are and how they help the album stay diverse and non-overbearing, the main attraction here is the songs. And how good are the songs, you ask? Well, two of them are "Roundabout" and "Long Distance Runaround"! That should tell you something right there! All kinds of funky percussion, unbelievably complex, powerful bass lines, all kinds of quick changes, fast runs, solos... and "Long Distance Runaround" manages to pack all of those things into about three minutes, too! Those were both MAJOR radio hits, but the non-radio hits, "South Side Of The Sky" and "Heart Of The Sunrise" are just as good. I could go on about these numbers, but I'll just describe my two favorite moments quickly - the opening riff on "Sunrise" and the piano solo in "South Side". The riff that starts "Heart Of The Sunrise" up is simply inhuman. How does Howe PLAY that thing? And it's really freaking catchy, too! And the piano solo is just breathtaking. It leads into all these cool Crosby, Stills, and Nash-esque vocal harmonies before cooling down and crashing back into the song's dark, unsettling melody. Damn does it rule.

Really, this album is only a little bit better than The Yes Album, but that one was so close to a 10 that being a little bit better is enough to push Fragile over the top. The songwriting is immaculate and the musicianship from all involved parties will simply blow you away (technically speaking, this particular lineup of Yes just might be the best lineup of any band ever). If you've ever wondered what Yes is all about, or have been meaning to give prog rock a try, this is a good album to jump in with.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

Is it early-70's schizophrenia, a clever introduction to the "New Yes" with new piano man Rick Wakeman, or a lameass attempt at finishing an album before I'm done taking a shit? Well, take your pick of the reason, but the fact remains that there are FIVE little pesky band solos between all the mighty fine tunes here on Yes' Fragile! And you know what? They don't all suck! But I'll get to them in a bit. Let's talk about the meat of the album here, eh? "Roundabout" was about as close as Yes was gonna get to real rock for quite awhile. No matter though; all the little quirks the boys threw into this innovative prog-single just make it for me: the guitar-harmonics intro/interlude, the sweet verse melody, the disco funk bass guitar tone, you name it, fella!

But hold on to your pooper-scooper! We ain't done yet! "South Side of the Sky"'s cold, bleak instrumentation matches it's lyrics (about freezing to death), and the middle "daaaa daaaa da da da" section contrasts the rest of the piece swimmingly. And while the music SEEMS tame, it just ain't! Howe contributes a brown, stinking heap of guitar runs all over the verses, and the chord progressions throw most of my sperm cells for a complete loop. And Wakeman, well, he ain't too bad either; not any breakneck soloing, but his interlude even SOUNDS chapped and chilly (if that makes a foreskin of sense)! Not as good as most real Yesheads hail it, but real good anyway.

"Long Distance Runaround"'s 3 minutes of musical idea after musical idea stuns me every time; in 3 MINUTES it completes the entire task of all 6 minutes of Rush's lameass "Overture/Temples of Syrinx" and then some! The melody is a teensey-boo jaunty, but not entirely unfollowable, sir. I like it just fine anyway. "Heart of the Sunrise" is a hell of an album closer. It's ten minutes and trecenta y cuatro seconds cover beautiful soundscapes thanks to that bluesy kickass guitar/bass riff and the beautiful Mellotron/organ swaths of noise. The 5/8 instumental breaks in the middle are quite interesting and should be worshipped like an ancient Aztec god. And the "SHARP....DISTANCE" parts are a great contrast to the main vocal melody, which actually features a passionate Jon Anderson vocal performance! Don't miss it!

And now for the (sigh) solo parts. Well, they're all just fine I suppose. Anderson records 8 or 9 of himself in the hilarious "We Have Heaven". His lines of nonsense actually do an interesting thing; in the second half of the track, his line "He is Here" begins to sound like "Beer is Here". Am I the only one who's noticed that?! Wakeman pulls off a Brahms symphony finale all by himself and the 4-track; read the liner notes for a more concise explanation of that one. So there. Bruford plays all 0:35 of "Five Percent for Nothing" with his genitals! Okay, I was lying. So, that leaves us with Mr. Guitar guy and Mr. Bass whiz. Well, Mr. Guitar guy gives us a little solo he wrote, but "The Clap" this is not. "Mood for a Day" is dark, foreboding and quite good. And it works pretty well if you play it on the piano! Now, Squire's contribution remains, and I will now officially label this as the most overrated part of the album, perhaps even Squire's career. What the POOP is so exciting about 6 overdubbed bass guitar lines? Even Wakeman's little brown nugget was better than this! I used to like it a bit, but now, yeesh! So that's it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Jon's vocal piece returns at the end of the record, 10 seconds after "Heart of the Sunrise" ends. Listen for it; it's cute! All in all, this is a quickly maturing Yes, but not quite as good as what's about to come. Not even close to the "10!" everyone else claims, but good anyway.

OVERALL RATING: 8

CLOSE TO THE EDGE (1972)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Close To The Edge, Siberian Khatru, And You And I. LOW POINTS: None.

I don't know exactly how I should start a review for what is not only Yes' best album, but also (with the possible exception of Images And Words) the best album from the genre of progressive rock. Sure it's not exactly a very original statement, especially from a Yes fan, but I can't help how I feel. For those who don't know this is the much talked about and heavily debated album from Yes (although not quite on the same level as Tales), released in the same year as Fragile. For the first time since the band went prog two albums ago there are no radio-friendly prog singles like "Roundabout" or "I've Seen All Good People." In fact there are only three songs on the whole album, one of which was the band's first of many side-longs running for over eighteen minutes, the other two go for around nine or so minutes. However all three of these songs are great classics. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, each one is among the finest of the genre.

The side-long title track itself is an interesting song, actually having the two verses/choruses, bridge, verse/chorus formula of most pop songs. Don't let having such a long song follow this formula scare you, though. Yes certainly have enough variety all throughout to keep it very interesting. The intro has all of these guitar lines starting it out instrumentally before the nutty lyrics and vocals come in with the line "A seasoned witch to call upon the depths of your disgrace," and you become sure that you're in prog paradise. It's incredible how powerful and moving a line like "I get up, I get down" can be during the climax of the whole song, which follows a section of the same name. There are a lot of weird noises in the background and the lyrics and vocals are gentle and during this bridge to the song before BANG! The organs blast away back into the original melody of the song that's played twice as powerful as before. Following the climax the song fades out with some birds chirping (the same way it began) to close this absolutely classic epic masterpiece.

Then its "And You And I," a simply astounding song about something or other. The music is awesome, built around a really pretty guitar melody. Steve's little noodlings in the beginning are also neat little moment, building up the mood of the song. In the end the vocals take the song to an even higher state of beauty, the repeated "And You And I" lines toward the end are no less than incredible. The third song, "Siberian Khatru" rocks in a way Yes have never done before, and it might be the best pure rocker they ever did. There are simply loads and loads of great riffs, some fantastic drum work, and a harpsichord break in the middle that ranks as one of the finest clips of music in rock's history. "Siberian" fades out repeating a guitar line with the whole band playing, completing the album perfectly.

It's odd how long people can talk about that title track and still spend so little time with the others. "Close To The Edge" is just so easy to go on and on about. That's the way it is with most albums containing a side-long epic. If anyone knows of a review of Meddle where the author spends more time talking about "San Tropez" than "Echoes," please tell me. Getting back to a more important subject, you've probably heard that this is an album that creates a sort of other universe and sucks some people into it. Probably one of the reasons I love this album so much is that I am one of these people. Close To The Edge takes me this other place, and that is something that most of the other great prog albums can't give me. Get this as soon as you can, it's much more than worth it.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

HIGH POINTS: Close To The Edge (particularly 'I Get Up, I Get Down' and 'The Solid Time Of Change', Siberian Khatru, And You And I (particularly 'Eclipse'). LOW POINTS: None.

Yes decided to continue on their quest to become as epic and instrumentally complex as possible, as this time, they decided to take on the all-encompassing journey of the side long track. And the technically stunning lineup of this incarnation of the band was determined to pull it off. On first listen, it immediately seems that the arrangements on this one are a lot more inaccessible than before, seeming somewhat unfocused and totally disorganized to unsuspecting listeners. But like many great albums, Close To The Edge is filled with rich nuances and challenges to ensure it has a big chance to grow on the listener with repeated plays. Of course, there's also the fact Jon Anderson is getting even more ridiculously inhuman and pompous with his vocals and lyrics, and also that Rick Wakeman is finally unleashed to his full potential on a Yes album.

As for the opening title track itself, words can't describe the sheer impact of this four part, 18:40 long pop song - it is one of the most important, influential, and original compositions in all of prog rock, and it's filled with a ton of exciting and confusing musical ideas. The song's opening part (The Solid Time Of Change) slowly fades in with the sound of birds chirping, which gradually builds in volume until a chaotic, dissonant racket of upfront bass, plus intertwining guitars and keyboards. It seems absolutely insane at first, but somehow, all of this randomness seems to make sense - I personally think of it as this huge storm unfolding over a dark jungle landscape, and all of a sudden, it gets interrupted by Jon Anderson's random 'ahhs' bursting out of the mist, pausing the storm for a second before it starts back up again.

Then after a few minutes Steve Howe's short guitar break leads the listener away from the chaos and into the crazy rhythmic verses, from which we're greeted with the famous lines 'a seasoned witch would call you from the depths of your disgrace / I'll rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace'. Yikes. And the rest of the lyrics are a lot like that in the song, but although they are ridiculous on the surface, they're strangely thematic, and are essential to the charm and power of the mood. The surprisingly accessible chorus in a sea of dissonance then comes in, and when the verses start back up for the 'Total Mass Retain' portion, Bruford's in a different time signature than the rest of the instruments, there's a rearrangement of the chorus melody over a cool as hell keyboard part from Wakeman, and yet the song is still bouncy and continues to flow nicely.

After a long couple minutes of nice ambience, the much more mellow and beautiful 'I Get Up, I Get Down' finally makes its appearance after the melodies in the framework of the rest of the song had been leading up to it. This section has a extremely minimalist approach, with Wakeman repeating one note over and over again over a strangely religious atmosphere in the lyrics and melody, and when Anderson yells out 'I get uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup, I get dowwwwwwwwwwn....' over the huge organ sound, it is one of the most climactic moments in rock history. And all of a sudden, it breaks into a really fast Wakeman solo after this is repeated a couple times, and the song returns to its' original melodic and thematical base for 'Seasons Of Man' that sounds even more powerful than before, and then it fades out on the chirping bird sounds again.

"Close To The Edge" itself may be the pinnacle of Yes creativity (and one of the finest sidelongs ever written), but there are two other songs here, and they're really not all that much weaker. The second one, "And You And I", actually might be one of the most complex 'love songs' ever written, and strangely enough, it was the hardest of the three songs for me to get into. The isolated guitar intro leads into a rather lovely romantic melody and it keeps on building and building until all of a sudden, it hits an absolute symphonic climax at its' 'Eclipse' portion, with the extremely majestic declaration in the melody ('coming quickly to terms with all expression made...') with exceptionally beautiful keyboard work from Wakeman. It's just about as moving as any selected portion of the title track, and that is a huge compliment. An extremely gorgeous song, from the structure to the acoustic guitar work. Pure paradise.

And finally, we get the shortest and most 'rocking' piece here, the nearly 9 minute "Siberian Khatru", which has an extremely catchy main riff that really gets me going, plus several very singable melodies - for a prog album with just 3 very lengthy songs, there are really a lot of hooks here. The keyboard parts give the song a fine symphonic twist, the harpsichord solo is one of the coolest difficult bits in Yes history, the rhythm section holds the fort down just as amazingly as ever, and even the nonsensical 'blue tail, tail fly...' parts are both extremely memorable and extraordinarily majestic. And then it all ends with some really screwed up rhythm and vocal-oriented 'da da da da da' thing that doesn't really have a point, but it sounds so awesome in the context of the song anyway. A great way to close out the album.

So that's it. All three songs exhibit professional command of mood, expert arrangement and technical ability, but what truly makes Close To The Edge one of the most incredible achievements of prog rock is that within the whole combination of these elements, it really has the capability to take you into this unexplainable surreal dreamworld of sheer majesty and power unlike any Yes album (or heck, any album) out there, and it's incredibly addictive, revealing more nuances of complete beauty and magic within its' music and melodies with each successive listen - as a result of this 'gets better with every listen' advantage, I've decided that this is in my opinion surpasses Fragile as the masterwork of this band, and it's easily within my God-like, essential recordings by anyone (probably in the top 5 at this point). Go out and buy (or steal if you have to) this album right now.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

The Fragile lineup strikes again, and this time, they're taking no prisoners. Knowing that they were good, the band decided the time was nigh to REALLY tear down the boundaries of rock music. Who needs short, catchy numbers, they said. Let's give 'em rock symphones! So, as a result, this album consists of three tracks - the nearly twenty minute title track, plus two other tracks that hover around the ten minute mark. As a result, critical opinion on this album tends to divide between the two types of people in the world: prog fans view it as one of the genre's absolute peaks, and non-prog fans view it as one of the worst albums ever made. Of course, nowadays the album at least gets respect from most people. And it should. This album takes all of the advances of The Yes Album and Fragile and improves on them a little bit more, thus making this album the peak of Yes's existance, and one of the finer prog rock albums ever released.

This record isn't an unqualified success merely because the album is ambitious, though. It isn't because the tunes are so long. It isn't even because of the unbelievably remarkable playing talents of the musicians (though that certainly helps - check out that intro riff on "Siberian Khatru" or the chaotic opening section of the title track, and you'll see what I'm talking about). This album rules so much because the songs are, quite simply, gorgeous! Even the more cacophanous parts of it (like that aforemention intro to the title track) all have a sense of rhythm and measure, and they all resolve themselves perfectly. No part of this album leaves you hanging - the group leads you through a series of build-ups and climaxes that never get boring for a second. These songs aren't long because they're jams - they're long because the compositions really need that much time to resolve themselves. This is one of the most well-thought out albums I've ever heard - everything is in its right place.

The title track is the best out of the three, and that says a lot, as the other two tunes aren't anything to sneeze at. It starts out really noisily, then resolves into an uncomfortable, uneasy melody that repeats itself in all kinds of different arrangements at different times. The band plays and sings hard, then it slowly gets to this GORGEOUS organ bit in the middle, with the most angelic singing of Jon's career. And the final climax of the song... I tell you, you've never heard anything like it. The song has POWER to it, which is something not a lot of songs this long can claim. Even the fact that the words mean nothing at best ("A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace/And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace" is the opening cry) doesn't detract from the song's utterly gripping nature.

But don't turn the album off after side 1! Side 2 is just about as good! "And You And I" is a very pretty, mostly acoustic number with great singing and a great build that keeps you on your toes, and Siberian Khatru... well, I guess it's supposed to be the album's "normal" rocker, but at over 8 minutes and a bunch of crazy changes and complex riffs, well, if kinda fails in that respect. It doesn't fail as a song, though! Those riffs all RULE, and the vocal melodies and cool solos (like the neato harpsichord solo in the middle) will absolutely HOOK you until the song ends. This is a classic of classics, and along with a couple of other albums, one of the peaks of progressive rock, and of course, a necessity in your record collection.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

The best (or a tie, at least - read my Relayer review for an explanation). Can't just keep this one and pretend Tales From Topographic Oceans never existed? Oh well. Anyway, don't expect the sissy melodies and whimsical arrangements from The Yes Album here (not until about 10 minutes in, I suppose). The title track's frantic, dissonant intro is simply a rite of passage; if you can accept it, you are a Yeshead, period. However, being a Yeshead is a unique honor, you see, because after the intro comes wave after wave of music filled up with musical genius. Little things abound, such as the repeated organ note in The Solid Time of Change, the quiet slide guitar parts in the solemn interlude I Get Up I Get Down, the use of an ELECTRIC SITAR in the first sung parts, and many, many other little things that I can't remember off the top of my head but almost expect when I put this magic piece of plastic in my CD player! But! Let's not forget the main song parts! The main melody is very unstable but it quickly grows on you.

The "Close to the edge/down by the river" melody is, in my hick opinion, sublime and melancholy. Don't miss it! The arrangement is quite simply genius. Using tension and release just like the 18th-century boys did, Yes manages to incorporate elements of classical grandeur into this extended pop song format. Did they mean to do it, you ask? Well, did I mean to burp in front of that group of really hot girls? Did that make any sense? Does life make sense? Why is the sky blue? Why is the poopie brown?

God, I hate the poopie.

But don't turn off your radio after Track 1! Because next is "And You And I", a beautiful love song that uses stark contrast to its advantage. The verses' acoustic nature really set the orchestral swells of "Eclipse" and "Apocaplyse" on a much higher pedestal, you see (I mean, would it really be as fun if Wakeman played all those strings through the whole song? I didn't think so!). Sound painting is best done in little portions. Kinda like Everclear. "Siberian Khatru"'s rockin' atmosphere is a throwback to "Roundabout", even though it caontains only a portion of the intensity of the original. It still rocks, though, and that country-bluse riff in the verse is as sweet as Reese Witherspoon in "Legally Blonde"! I love that woman so much. Fee-yah! The harpsichord solo is very nice, and there's a little turn that Wakeman does that just makes the whole solo for me. Maybe it does for you too, eh?

One final note about this album: I claimed in my review of Pink Floyd's Meddle that Yes could not pull off the sound painting that Floyd did with "Echoes". I was lying. One day I was listening to "Close to the Edge" (the song, not the whole album) and during the I Get Up I Get Down section, suddenly I saw these weird visions in my head, COMPLETELY fucking vivid and real. And no, I was not on anything. That event remains in my memory, as that is the only time something that vivid happened to me listening to music. Has this ever happened to anyone else?! This is the best album ever made. EVER. Short (only 37:44!), but thankfully, quantity and quality are not equals. Peace!

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

[email protected] (dima)

COMMENTS

Overrated garbage

[email protected] (john sieber)

Overrated?

I don't think so. Overrated would mean that the public embraces Yes like they do, say, Linkin Park. That's the DEFINITION of overrated: praised by the general public. I'm sorry, but I just don't see any "And You And I" videos on MTV. The minute you DO see one, though, let me know, k?

Let the record show that I have kept blind cultish pro-Yes behavior out of this response, even though it was very VERY hard. However, I think a bit of sarcasm leaked onto my screen. So sorry.

YESSONGS (1973)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Starship Trooper, Siberian Khatru. LOW POINTS: None.

Yes' first is a long long series of long long long live albums also happens to most likely the best one they ever put out. I'll eventually get around to buying the Keys albums (the only major live Yes albums I don't currently own) someday, but those are only partly live anyway, so even if they turn out to be better than Yessongs I still won't be able to call them the band's best live releases. Anyway I guess that the first issue concerning this album I should address is the one about the length of this release. Well... I don't know. I've never listened to this album all the way through in one sitting, so that might put me into the category of those who think it is overlong. On the other hand, I'll also side with those who say this is an excellent sampling of the band's first three prog offerings. Have you looked at that track listing lately? All of Close To The Edge, every bit of The Yes Album except "A Venture" and "The Clap," and most of Fragile as well. Hey, there's another complaint for you. "South Side Of The Sky" should have been included too. The second best song on Fragile left off? Why?! At least we have the best of the solo bits one here.

Enough about this album as a whole. The songs themselves are cool. "Yours is No Disgrace" is a whole lot longer with some fantastic jams, and the "Long Distance Runaround/The Fish" sequence is THIRTEEN MINUTES LONG. Yep, that's a lot longer than the original stuff on Fragile. "Starship Trooper" is here too, with the first of many many many "Wurm" jams. It's fantastic as well, the best "Wurm" jam I've heard, which has been quite a many as my brother used to have a habit of downloading every single live version of that song he could find from every mp3 source on the Internet, and I would usually give them a listen or so. I told you that this is the perfect song to do live. However, despite all of the nice things I have said about the songs on Yessongs, I don't believe that any of them, "Starship Trooper" included, are better than those found on the studio albums. A bunch are equal, others just different, maybe one or two worse, but none better. I'm not the live album fanatic anyway, and my favorite is still probably Live After Death, but if you like early progressive Yes, get this now.

OVERALL RATING: 8

HIGH POINTS: Starship Trooper, Siberian Khatru, And You And I, Roundabout, Heart Of The Sunrise. LOW POINTS: The Fish.

It was inevitable after the epic prog rock scope and jaw-dropping instrumental chops of the band's albums from 71-72 that a live concert recording would be in the works, so that Yes could prove once and for all how amazingly tight of a unit they were. And so it is, Yessongs is a monolithic triple live extravaganza recorded during the supporting tour for Close To The Edge (from which all 3 songs are performed in reverse order during the course of the album), during which time Bill Bruford left the band and was replaced by Alan White. Bruford still has a hand in a couple performances here though, including "Perpetual Change" (which has a neat drum solo from him toward the end) and a medley of "Long Distance Runaround" and "The Fish".

So how is the result of the whole affair? Let me tell you, it kicks complete and total ass. For starters, we get every epic track from The Yes Album, Fragile and Close To The Edge except "South Side Of The Sky", and as you can tell from my reviews of those albums, this is a particularly great thing (not to mention the shorter filler like "A Venture", "Cans And Brahms" and "The Clap" is eliminated). Sure, I would have at least like to hear at least something played from Yes and Time And A Word, or at least medleys of some of the stuff on there, especially since there's a lot in the way of individual band member solo spots on here, and some of them get a bit dull, but somehow I feel that would deflate the epic scope of this whole affair.

It's definitely some epic scope, too. On several instances, the songs actually eclipse the original renditions, whether it be by a faster and more energetic treatment ("Siberian Khatru", "Roundabout", "Heart Of The Sunrise"), a really neat rearrangement (a part of the climax bit at the beginning of "And You And I", a great toe-tapping piano intro to "Yours Is No Disgrace") or amazingly tight performances between the musicians (the amazingly difficult middle bit in "Perpetual Change"). The band member solo bits sound really, really great here in places too, including Rick Wakeman's excerpts from his album The Six Wives Of Henry VIII (an astounding display of difficult and memorable instrumental melodies), Steve Howe's timeless acoustic instrumental "Mood For A Day", and the aforementioned Bruford solo, though some of them, while technically startling and electrifying, do get a bit dull in places (the solos in "The Fish" and "Yours Is No Disgrace").

But really, this is nothing compared to what closes things - the showstopping rendition of "Starship Trooper". Basically every aspect of the original is improved here - all the instruments and Jon Anderson's vocals are perfectly played, with a much fuller sound than the studio version. And the 'Wurm' jam is even better as well, with vintage Wakeman soloing overtaking the previous parts from Tony Kaye, not to mention Howe's parts are perfect here and Squire needs no explanation as usual. Add it all up, and you have my undisputed favorite prog rock live album of all time, and if not for a some sloppily performed sections (the 'Your Move' section of "I've Seen All Good People" and the following bits after 'I Get Up I Get Down' in "Close To The Edge") and a couple slightly dull jam bits, you might be looking at a 10 as a wonderfully convenient way to own all these great Yes epics on one album.

OVERALL RATING: 9

Yes were, as I've mentioned, probably about the finest musicians of all time, so they figured that after the release of their most ambitious album to date, Close To The Edge, would be the ideal time to release a straight up, no-overdubs, rough-and-scratchy sound quality live album. But since the groups compositions were so epic in scope, the record had to get spread out over 6 sides of vinyl. That's right - a TRIPLE LIVE ALBUM, featuring just about every song from the last three albums (Close To The Edge is represented here in its entirety, all of the Yes Album epics are here, and every epic from Fragile barring "South Side Of The Sky" is here, along with a couple of the solos). Unfortunately, none of the songs from either Yes or Time And A Word get represented here.

I would've loved to hear this nearly-classic Yes lineup (Bruford left before the supporting tour for Edge, so former Lennon and Harrison backup drummer Alan White filled in behind the skins, where he has remained to this day; Bruford still plays on a couple of these tracks, though) put their own unique spin on material like "Looking Around" or "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed". But had they done that, it'd have been a QUADRUPLE live album, so I guess it's OK.

So, if you decide that you really need this album, what will you get that's different from the studio albums? Well, actually, not a whole lot. There are a couple of neat changes (like taking the orchestral climax of "And You And I" and slamming it at the beginning, or putting a groovy intro and guitar solo into "Yours Is No Disgrace", extending "The Fish" into a long, technically proficient jam, or playing with the tempos a little bit), but for the most part, these songs are fairly faithful to their studio counterparts. That almost makes the album sound even more impressive - these guys could pull of those difficult studio tricks with style. It still would have been nice to have some significant alterations to make this a more distinct live album.

Of course, the album sounds really really good, as all of the songs rule, but there's only one moment here that is simply irresistable and blows the studio version away, and that's the closing "Starship Trooper". The frist two segments of it sound about the same, but the ending "Wurm" jam is amazing. That bit is AWESOME! Remember how much I raved about it up on my Yes Album review? Well, take everything I said there and magnify it - make the build slower and more intense, add some extra awesome solos, and have the song crash into a finale rather than fading out. A definitive Yes moment, and possibly the best in their entire catalogue.

The album really only suffers from a couple of problems - first of all, the sound quality is subpar - not really BAD, but if you listen through headphones, you'll hear quite a bit of hiss, and Jon's vocals occasionally get buried. And a couple of parts here don't quite measure up to their studio counterparts - namely, the "Your Move" opening section of "I've Seen All Good People" seems sloppy (though the jamming "All Good People" part more than makes up for it), and "Close To The Edge" loses some of its charm in a live setting simply because Wakeman can't get those deep organ tones out at a live show. Still, no biggie. I can't give it a 10, simply because it isn't necessary for you to purchase at all, really, but the overall quality of these songs is certainly enough to guarantee the album a nine. If you ever doubted the musical prowess of the members of Yes, proceed here immediately.

OVERALL RATING: 9

Well, I suppose the good thing with triple live albums is that there's always something for everyone, right? Whew. What a task, listening to all 2+ hours of this thing! Well, most of this sheeyat is note-for-note from the studio versions, with a couple minor exceptions (for instance, "And You and I" starts so majestically, using that big orchestral interlude in a lower key as the intro. Hey I like it, kiss my ass.) Well, now I will commence with my usual formula of evluating a live album, picking out highlights, then lowlights. First the highlights: The aforementioned change to "And You and I" is a welcome change. The super-ultra-long-cool jam in the "The Fish" section of "Long Distance Runaround" is oodles better than the dull studio wankery by Squire. And Jon Anderson is sounding super-giddy throughout too... nice. I also really appreciate the inclusion of my favorite Yes album, Close To The Edge, in full! And such powerful renditions of all three songs. Wow.

Lowlights: The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. A LOT. And "Starship Trooper" live... hmm. Ladies and germs, it aint that good!!! Reading people's opinion of the "Wurm" jam got my hopes up, but it aint any more exciting than it is in the studio. Sorry, no dice. And I woulda liked to see some of the first two albums represented here too, ya know? But besides that, hey G, you got yourself a pretty decent live album! Probably on a par with ELP's Welcome Back My Friends.... enh... nah. A point lower. Good, but not great. Still well worth buying. Check it out.

OVERALL RATING: 8

TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS (1973)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: The Revealing Science Of God. LOW POINTS: The Remembering.

There has certainly been a lot said about this one. You should know that this is a double album with a mere four songs on it, yes, there are four side-longs on here. If you really want to know the truth this is the one Yes album I always wished I liked more than I do. You can see right here that it is the only gap in the otherwise flawless output that started back in 1971, and if I were able to give this a 10, that would be a whole 6 tens all in a row, more than I've given out to any other band. That's not the only reason, though. The other I'm not too sure about though. It just seems that deep inside me I want to rank this higher than it's actually worth. Maybe it's because the other major Yes side-longs are "Close To The Edge" and "The Gates Of Delirium," two of the greatest songs ever written. Think of four on them all in one place. It should deserve a 10. Now lose that image of four of the greatest since I can only consider one of these songs a true classic, and the others range from great to a tad dull.

First there's "The Revealing Science Of God," the classic on the album. It's got this weird chant to open and close it, and all sorts of wonderful lyrics like "Getting over overhanging trees." Great! It's thoroughly enjoyable the whole way through its twenty minutes. Following that is the song that's my vote for the worst on the album, "The Remembering." Luckily the song only drags until the "Relayer" lyrical section, and from that point forward it's awesome. Starting (and ending) side 3 is "The Ancient," a song that gets bashed a lot, even from fans of this album. I love it. Steve's guitar bit is not bad at all, and "Leaves of Green" can be described with no other word than beautiful. Closing is "Ritual," the big climax to the long album with a whole bunch of great crazy stuff at the end. Many people will tell you it's the best on the album, and I'd have to disagree, but man does it come so close to being a classic.

While probably being the very definition of overblown and pretentious, Tales From Topographic Oceans is a very entertaining piece for me, and a low 9, mostly because of "The Remembering." This album is certainly not for everyone; it's very likely the biggest love it or hate it album in all of rock, and even a whole lot of Yes fans call it one of the band's worst (although there are still plenty who call it their best). But if you can't get enough of the trilogy of albums before this, and also own and love Relayer, you might be the kind who should give it a try.

OVERALL RATING: 9

HIGH POINTS: The Revealing Science Of God. LOW POINTS: The Ancient.

A major letdown. As if the serious ambition of Close To The Edge wasn't enough, Jon Anderson had to go even more over the top here, and as a result Yes came up with the album that became the most controversial and criticized in the progressive sphere, and probably in all of rock history. Structurally, Tales From Topographic Oceans is an utterly intimidating, overblown work - as a four song double album, with a song taking up each side (ranging from 18 to 21 minutes in length). Adding to that, Anderson's nonsensical lyrical vision reached its' excessive highpoint, with insane ramblings of cryptic phrases based on a highly obscure concept dealing with scriptures covering all aspects of civilization. Music fans (and even Yes fans) generally either love it or hate it - but its' ambition is certainly unquestionable, as nothing of this magnitude had ever really been tried before.

Tales begins with "The Revealing Science Of God" (essentially the first 20 minute movement of the piece), the first and best excursion into this territory. It starts off with a burst of lyrics that might immediately scare some off, letting you know where the album is headed, but in retrospect, it's the least exhausting song here, as conventional, highly singable melodies flow throughout. The music also generally matches the peacefulness and beauty of the cover art, with nice symphonic keyboards that really make the song work (not to mention a fast-paced, high pitched solo near the end) - it also features a cool fast-paced groove that keeps showing up, and a nice slower climax. It's sort of weird how Rick Wakeman hated this album so much, since this, among other Tales moments, was a piece where he certainly made an impact.

Unfortunately, the quality of the following two songs are just about hit and miss throughout their length. "The Remembering" has more atmospheric keys that set the mood and another speedy section that foreshadows the title of the following album, but it's multiple melodies are repeated way too many times throughout the song, giving the impression that it's highly padded, and that it should have been cut anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. Those faults are relatively minor compared to the significant ones of the second disc opener "The Ancient", whose first 10 or 12 minutes are some of the most wasted moments on the album, with a repetitive keyboard/drum groove and annoying chants of the word 'sun' getting in the way, as well as some of Steve Howe's most tuneless and awfully dissonant playing. The song kind of gets on the right path near the end, though, as Howe remembers that his main strength is as an acoustic player, as he plays extremely tuneful bits pleasantly reminiscent of earlier triumphs along with some of Anderson's most provocative lyrics.

The final piece on the album (and the longest at a mere 21:35), "Ritual", features a great opening instrumental section that has a delightfully engaging groove, and guitar-wise it beautifully strings together some of the better melodies from the rest of the album. It's also the song where Chris Squire's basslines and Alan White's drumming (in the form of a solo near the end) really get to shine, while the core of the song also functions as a relaxing Eastern ballad. It's a little overlong (obviously), but it's extremely peaceful and the drum solo bit is very, very entertaining, so it's a filling conclusion to things. The album itself, however, while not exactly bad, is decidedly more shaky, proving that ambitiousness can be overdone and excessive, but there are enough beautiful moments here to justify at least some of this, even if the actual musical merit here seems a little empty as compared to the potload of ideas on the 1972 albums, making it their weakest album to this point.

OVERALL RATING: 7

HIGH POINTS: None. LOW POINTS: The Ancient.

Tales From Topographic Oceans hates you. I hate to break it to you, but it does. If you had a kitten, this album would aim for it with its car. If you had a prize winning flower garden, this album would trample all over it. If you were married, this album would sleep with your spouse every time you left this house. Sure, the album PRETENDS to like you. Its primary creators, Jon Anderson and Steve Howe, tried to make a wonderful, friendly, pleasant artificial creature, much like Dr. Frankenstein did. Unfortunately, just like the Frankenstein monster, the best intentions proved deadly, as the album, as I've previously stated, hates you. Hates you with a vengeance.

All kidding aside, though, this has GOT to be the most boring record ever recorded. After everyone loved Close To The Edge so much, Jon Anderson decided that he could do whatever he wanted and people wouldn't care. Hence, he made a double album with 1 song on each side (though the "songs" are intended to be parts of a suite, not individual songs, though a couple of these tunes were played by themselves live). He wanted to paint a wonderful, spiritual, uplifting picture of pure joy. Unfortunately, to say his reach exceeded his grasp would be like saying that Robert Fripp is a bit pretentious. The album is padded, padded, and then padded some more. It's quite obvious from listening to it that the band REALLY didn't have 80 minutes worth of coherent musical themes, so they just kind of glued some random jamming into some boring, unrelated song fragments. Sure, every once in a while, a good idea will pop up (like the ending of "The Ancient" or a couple of nice acoustic bits in "The Remembering", or the opening couple of minutes of "The Revealing Science Of God"), but these ideas are absolutely SMOTHERED by the endless, tuneless jamming that surround it.

The worst offender by far is "The Ancient", side 3 of the record. Sure, the last couple of minutes are nice, but the 16 or so minutes that came before it are WRETCHED. Tuneless, random percussion mixed with some random vocals and some half-hearted attempts at repeating earlier themes. It brings the album to an absolute screeching halt. Not that it had all that much momentum in the first place. The first couple of sides contain most of the best moments on the album ("The Revealing Science Of God" and "The Remembering"), but even these are smothered in boring, tuneless jams that don't flow at all. And hell, by the time side 4 rolls around, you'll REALLY be hankering to put in something by, say, the Dead Kennedys to pry your mind away from this mess.

I'm giving the album a 4. The only reason the grade is as high as it is is because the record is rarely truly horrible - with the exception of "The Ancient", everything is perfectly listenable and inoffensive. It just never goes anywhere, and part of what made Yes's other huge epics, like "Close To The Edge", "The Gates Of Delerium", or even "Endlesss Dream" great was the fact that they DID have points and worked to get to those points. Here, you get about 15-20 decent minutes of musical ideas smothered in about 45 minutes of boring, but not horrible solos and 15 minutes of unlistenable crap. You've been warned. When dealing with "epic" Yes albums, grab Close To The Edge and Relayer without delay, but I'd put this one off until I became a Yes diehard. Hell, Big Generator is a more solid buy, and you can get it much cheaper.

OVERALL RATING: 4

RELAYER (1974)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: The Gates of Delirium, To Be Over. LOW POINTS: None.

Now Relayer here is certainly one absolutely brilliant album. Apparently after a massive project like Tales the band decided to try to make another Close To The Edge style album (side-long plus two 9 minute songs), and, while certainly not quite as good as Edge, this is still one of the greatest albums of all time. Everything and everyone here works beautifully to brings out one of the most chaotic yet beautiful albums ever. The band members are playing well, too. Squire's bass work just might be at its absolute peak, or at the very least second only to Fragile. Howe is playing great solos all over the place while White on the drums is rolling like crazy. While Moraz is certainly not Rick Wakeman, his keyboard playing is still quite impressive, especially during the opener. Anderson, well, he's Anderson so if you hate his voice then don't read the next sentence or two. He's singing wonderfully, and I very much enjoy it. I don't know how people can listen to "To Be Over" and call him a completely soulless singing robot.

The opening track, "The Gates Of Delirium," is, in my mind, the definitely best side-long song ever written, probably the best Yes song ever written, and very likely the best progressive rock song ever written. Now I've heard many of these twenty plus minute epics and I absolutely love pretty much every one I have heard (Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother Suite" and King Crimson's "Lizard" included), but only a couple ("Echoes" and "A Change of Seasons," sometimes "Tarkus" too, when I'm in the mood) can even come close to "Gates." The rest of the side-longs in history, though mostly great, just can't compare; not "Supper's Ready," not "2112," not even "Close To The Edge."

First of all it's proof that when he wants to Anderson can, in fact, pen lyrics we can understand. It's a big post-apocalyptic war sort of thing, with a big battle and recovery and all of those other war things thrown in. That's not why it's so great, though. There's also some music in this song too, and it is no less than spectacular. I mean, the beginning with Steve's soloing is amazing, and the vocal melodies are among some of Anderson's best ever. Then around the eight-minute mark the singing stops and a long eight minute instrumental section begins, illustrating the actual battle like nothing I've ever heard. The way the sound paints such a vivid picture is so incredible that I think it becomes pretty obvious that Yes have again proved themselves the gods of progressive rock. After the big battle sequence is the extremely beautiful "Soon," and it is a very very moving piece. Jon gives his finest vocal performance in a single song, singing the words so sincerely it almost makes me cry just thinking about it. The volume nob guitar thing that Steve does is perfect for the mood of the part of the song and Moraz's keyboard background also fits in so well; this is a flawless ending to one of the finest songs written.

And the second side is not bad at all. A little bit less than the first, yes, but what's to be expected when you have "The Gates Of Delirium" opening an album? "Sound Chaser" is wild and crazy, but technically flawless and a hell of a lot of fun to listen to. Squire does some stunning bass work all over that every bassist absolutely must hear. It's a load of fun, hitting a real highpoint with the "Cha-cha-chaaaa Cha-cha" section. Certainly one of the better songs that has been written, even though not quite as brilliant as Edge rocker "Siberian Khatru." Finally, the closing "To Be Over" is the most underrated song on the album. Most people seem to call it too dull or boring, and to be honest so did I once. But now I've found that it is an absolutely necessary follow-up to "Sound Chaser," and it is almost as unbelievably beautiful as "Soon." A third classic in this masterpiece of an album.

This is tied with The Yes Album as my second favorite Yes release, and sometimes I even find it better than TYA. Following the Close To The Edge style of album layout Yes have created an album that is in my opinion almost as good. Comparing Relayer with Edge you can see where the band was able to improve upon the original masterpiece. Side 2 on this one may not be a great as side 2 on CTTE, but "The Gates of Delirium" is the best song they ever did, so that makes up for it. Relayer is one of the most stunning and brilliant albums of all time, and no one will convince me otherwise.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

HIGH POINTS: The Gates Of Delirium, Sound Chaser. LOW POINTS: None.

The results of Tales probably did more harm than good for the band, as many critics figured Yes would fall to its' death in crumbling in its' excess. It also led Rick Wakeman to quit the band for the first, but actually not the last, time, with his replacement turning out to be a jazz fusion player by the name of Patrik Moraz. With a newfound backlash against them, you'd think the band would have toned its' act down considerably, but nope - in fact, the resulting album is a return to the Close To The Edge style setup, with a sidelong track and two songs on the second half. And musically, as opposed to the peacefulness of Tales, this is actually the most chaotic and noisy album the band ever put out, and the musicians here take this as an opportunity to go completely nuts with the complexity of both the playing and arrangements. So it's quite an interesting effort, due in no small part by a mammoth-length song getting the album off to a great start.

This, of course, is in the form of a progressive epic that attempts to musically recreate War And Peace, the longest Yes song ever at a staggering 21:55, "The Gates Of Delirium". The structure of the song, while it does seem just a little overlong, is nothing short of amazing in depicting a picture of war. Naturally, to start off the song, they allow the new guy Moraz to begin with weird keyboard noises on which the rest of the band chimes in. The lyrics in the 'verses' are pretty glorious, and actually make a lot of sense, with lines like 'choose and renounce, throw the chains to the floor / kill or be killing faster sins correct the flow', and Steve Howe throwing in cool guitar solos in between these lyrics. The vocal melodies maybe leave a bit to be desired in actual memorability, most notably the 'listen...' portion, but they do a fine job of building up the tension for the finest moments of the epic as the troops are about to go into a violent battle.

The actual 'battle' portion of the song begins at around the 8 minute portion, and it's nothing short of dizzying. The musicians attempt to play about as frantically as possible, throwing in fast and edgy instrumental parts that create a completely chaotic effect that somehow flows together. We also get the sound of glasses breaking and loud guitar parts that help to evoke an aural rollercoaster of sound, with a melodic guitar solo section that rises out of the drum pounding ashes, and later gradually slows down, flowing into the battle's 'aftermath'. Ascending out of the ambience of death is a quite peaceful but decidedly eerie ballad subtitled 'Soon' (which was actually released as a single) - the impact of the chaos and hope for the future is reflected beautifully in Jon's vocals and lyrics, and this helps the song, one of the best and most creative compositions the band ever came up with, to come to its' gripping finale.

Although "Gates" threatens to overshadow the other two numbers on here in all its' glory, at least "Sound Chaser" is an excellent song in its' own right. It's surely one of the craziest and most technically difficult pieces the band ever attempted, as its' sole aim seems to be to make it as complex and jaw-dropping as possible. It really works, though - Chris Squire's bass work here in particular is nothing short of a mindblowing spectacle (especially near the end as the song changes time incessantly), and Steve Howe contributes a breathtaking guitar solo over light keyboard accompaniment midsong (plus the barking noises he makes earlier here can scare the hell out of the listener). The random yells of 'cha cha cha... cha cha CHOMP' at the end are also a hysterical touch - it helps build this album's reputation as a noisy and crazy affair, and I personally love it. Nine minutes of Yes sickness I'll probably never get tired of.

The final composition here, "To Be Over", is somewhat less impressive than the other two, but nevertheless, this Eastern sounding ballad does a great job of easing the tension and creating gorgeous atmosphere to bring the album to a beautiful end. The midsong guitar solo is also extremely gorgeous (another definite standout performance from Steve Howe), and the ending chant is pretty, but I do have a couple minor problems with it. It might be just me, but it just seems like a really beautiful 4 minute song dragged out a lot longer than it should be, and plus it's sort of an inferior rewrite of the Eastern sections of "Ritual" from the last album. It's still a pretty composition, and well worthy of your listening time. In all, this is surely one of the most interesting and underrated albums in the band's career, and it's actually grown on me a bit more as one of my personal favorite Yes efforts. Definitely a thoroughly exciting musical journey, no question.

OVERALL RATING: 9

Yes, in spite of lots of crticism, decided to, once again, try to push all the boundaries of accepted forms of rock music, releasing another record in the style of Close To The Edge, with one really really really long song on one side and two shorter songs on the other. And this was coming on the heels of Tales From Topographic Oceans, a double album with FOUR songs on it. I guess they thought this was actually scaling down the ambitions of their music. Ah well. That's not important. What IS important is how good the music contained on this disc is. And for the most part, it's very, very good.

The closest thing to a well-known song here is the opening side long suite, "The Gates Of Delirium". Unlike previous side-longs, this one actually wants to rock out (except for the last 7 minutes, but I'll get to that later). The song tries to tell a story of warfare, its causes, and its consequences, and it all works very well. These are probably the best lyrics Yes ever wrote ("The pen won't stay the demon's wings/The hour approaching pounding out the devil's sermon" and many other lines get the point across very, very well). And the band actually jams a little! Usually the band's 20 minute epics are strictly structured, but in the middle of this song, there's a lengthy, dissonant, hard-edged instrumental jam (supposed to signify the battle taking place) that just rocks! Then the whole thing calms down and there's a GORGEOUS coda with Jon singing about his hope for the future in the wake of all the destruction around him. A fantastic tune. I think they could have conceivably chopped a minute or two out of it, and it isn't as good as the title track from Close To The Edge, but still, this is easily a fantastically wonderful song.

Side 2 is weird as hell, though. It starts with one of the strangest songs I've ever heard, called "Sound Chaser", which pounds along arhythmically and piles all of these dissonant riffs, solos, and keyboard lines on top of each other, while Jon screams raging nonsense over it (well, at least we're getting back into familiar territory on that count). A lot of people seem to dislike the song, but I think it's great, personally - really hard to get into, but unbelievably impressive and worth hearing just to see how far out Yes could actually go. Plus, when everything jams together at the end and everything starts to conflict with everything else, it just rules.

"To Be Over" is really soft and mellow, sort of a "calm after the storm" in reaction to the two previous numbers. And, well, personally, I just don't like it. It's not BAD per se, but in no way does it merit being 10 minuites long. My eyes are drooping by minute number three, but then again, maybe that's what they wanted. Who knows? So, basically, if you liked Close To The Edge, you'll probably like this. A lot of it ranks with Yes's best work. "To Be Over" and the fact that the other epics could use a little trimming keeps me from calling this a classic, but it's a quality entry in the Yes catalogue, and one well worth getting. And if you never liked Yes because you thought they were a bunch of wimps, this might be the ideal record to start with.

OVERALL RATING: 8

When I first popped this little silver thingy in my CD player, I'll admit it, I was not impressed. I listened first to some epic that I thought was at least 5 minutes too long. Then some random bullshit assaulted my eardrums for 9 minutes, followed by a mellow tune that tried to be "And You And I". Well, that was that for Relayer. Yup. I put it back in its little case thingy and put it on its shelf to be forgotten in between Keys To Ascension 2 and Time And A Word.

Fast-forward a month: I'm fucking tired of every one of my Yes albums, yes, even Close To The Edge. And I look up and see Relayer, all new and shiny. So I pop it in, listen all the way through. "Not too bad," I thought. "Not shitty, anyway." And so it goes for a week, but nothing really drastic hits my earlobes until one day. And that day, "The Gates of Delirium" FUCKING FLOORED me. I was speechless, dazed, confused, and in utter orgasmic delight all at once. And then, "Sound Chaser" started up and I said, "Hey! There's still another 20 minutes to this ride!" and listen with dropped jaw to "Sound Chaser" and rode through the smooth ride that is "To Be Over". Ummm. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!?!?!

Well, anyway, that's how I got into what I now realize to be the TIE (with Close To The Edge) for best Yes album. Why, do you ask? Oh, well, this is the absolute peak for the band when it comes to pure CHOPS. Yes, this is Yes' ELP album. This is of course best shown on "Sound Chaser", which, despite its erratic, dissonant sound, is a really well-thought-out piece, that really shows off new keyboardist Patric Moraz. Boy, but I'll miss Wakeman, that is, until I get Going For The One. Great bass lines here, too, and you cannot beat that rip of "Mood for a Day" that Howe pulls out of his ass! Also, despite the utter annoyance factor, I LOVE the "cha cha cha" part. So there.

And damn, is the ending cool! with all those chaotic lines piled on top of each other, on top is that happy jolly bouncy synth line, and then "badabadabadabada-dada-dadaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!" YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then there's "To Be Over" with that little melodic motif exposed in the intro and used throughout, laid neatly on top of velvet-smooth accompaniment. Aaaaaaaaah. Then it goes into a country groove in the middle, but even that seems right!

And I KNOW I'm forgetting something... Oh. Just the second-best epic of Yes' career (behind "Close To The Edge")... "The Gates Of Delirium". But where "Edge" succeeded with intelligent writing and logical points of tension and release, "Gates" succeeds with pure chaos. Again, like "Sound Chaser", the band's chops are in the forefront. So, here's the lowdown on "The Gates Of Delirium": Frist is a pretty intro section, which gets a bit bigger when Jon comes in with those biting lyrics that obviously succeed in painting a bloody battle for the listener. Then, on the fourth verse, the wall of sound gets even bigger as the battle begins with Jon's high-pitched voice wailing at the top of its' range. The battle section just goes fucking haywire. But underneath all that chaos, it really sounds like the boys knew exactly what they were doing. As the battle winds down, a slow march-y jam brings the listener back, before it dissolves into the hymn-like "Soon", which in my opinion is the most heavenly piece of Yes music ever.

Think about it: picture yourself as a survivor of the battle that just ensued, looking over the blood-soaked battlefield and, looking up, you see a high-pitched Englishman, er, angel, singing about our reason to be here, and suddenly you realize that war is a reality that is necessary, and that those who died did not do so in vain. And as it fades out, please do remember to pick your jaw up off the ground; it can really hurt a passer-by.

So there you have it. Where Close To The Edge as a whole gives some of the most vivid sound painting in an abstract sense, Relayer gives it in a wholly real and tangible way. If there was any album that I'd HAVE to point at as drug-influenced, it would be Relayer. The way I see it, Relayer is what would happen if you stuck the boys in a room for a week with nothing but the suitcase from Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (note: If you have no idea what I'm talking about, rent the movie AS SOON AS POSSIBLE). Art-rock at it's finest...? Well, hey, why not? This one and it's brother from 1972 are as close to perfect as you'll hear until that fateful day when you go to God to reckon for your sins. But, hey, tell Him you listened to Relayer and Close To The Edge when you were alive; The Big Guy might just give you a free pass to heaven.

* OVERALL RATING: 10 *

[email protected] (Rich Bunnell)

COMMENTS

I keep sliding back and forth on which is my favorite Yes album, but I've finally decided that this is probably it. "Gates Of Delirium" is a friggin' masterpiece (it really oughta say something that not one second of the 21:55 is boring at all), and "Sound Chaser" and "To Be Over," despite the fact that they have a tough act to follow, both hold their own with interesting arrangements and cool harmonies. It's certainly Yes's messiest album (with the possible exception of Going For The One) but somehow it still seems structured at the same time, and I give it a 10.

GOING FOR THE ONE (1977)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Turn of the Century, Parallels. LOW POINTS: None.

In a sense I sometimes get sad listening to this album, knowing it was the final great classic album. Not that they couldn't release some solid material following Going For The One, they could and did. Drama and especially Talk are both spectacular, and The Ladder was great too, but looking back at the past from 1971 and The Yes Album until now I personally see one of the greatest stretches of albums in the history of this wonderful thing we call rock music. Ok, I'll stop with that now. Looking down at my Tormato review I see myself again wishing for the great days of old. I guess it's just something fitting to do after a great band's peak period has ended.

But hey, this is before the classics have ended, and the great music is still here! The title track is awesome, although I will note one thing about it. If there is anywhere that Jon's vocals annoy me, it's probably there. Not the singing robot thing, though, it's about his near-soprano singing. He sure hits the high notes on this one. A tad too high if you ask me. I'm not the kind to complain about a vocalist a whole lot though (with about one or two exceptions to that rule, and I won't mention them here), and it's only really during the chorus so I don't mind it much.

Then it's "Turn Of The Century," which rivals "Starship Trooper" and a couple others for my favorite Yes song under ten minutes. The melody is played with great feeling, and Anderson gives possibly his second finest vocal performance ever (to "Gates"). An interesting note is that a while later, on the 1995 Yes Tribute album called Tales From Yesterday, Steve Howe sat down with Annie Haslam and recorded a version of the song with her singing. I'm not sure which one I prefer. On one hand Annie is a better vocalist than Jon, and sings the song very well. Then again, the Howe/Haslam version doesn't have the big keyboard part in the middle, and is shorter overall. But those vocals are just so beautiful, it really makes it a hard choice. Oh well. Either version is certainly worthwhile, as "Turn Of The Century" has the same spectacular main melody on either one.

"Parallels" is a classic Yes rocker and has got the big church organ blast everyone likes to talk about, and the short "Wonderous Stories" is an attempt at bit of a pop song for a change, in contrast to the extremely progressive stuff they were doing before with Tales and Relayer. The result is a good one, benefited by a catchy little chorus. The big fifteen minute "Awaken" is, well, admittedly not the best epic Yes has given us. It doesn't thrill quite on the level of a song like "Close To The Edge." Even so, it does a good job of painting a beautiful picture with the music, something that not every band could pull off. Going For The One is a rather low ten, mostly because of "Awaken." It could have been a tad better, but is still good enough not to hurt the overall quality of the album too much. The long and quiet section might get boring for a lot of people. Not me. I love it, just not as much as I love "Close To The Edge" or "Heart Of The Sunrise." So there it is. As the last big great classic Yes album ever Going For The One is definitely something a prog fan should own, so go get it.

OVERALL RATING: 9.5

HIGH POINTS: Turn Of The Century, Going For The One, Parallels. LOW POINTS: None.

After the chaotic Relayer, Yes decided to take something of a hiatus, during which the band members worked on solo projects, and by the time they regrouped for their next studio album, the rest of the band had somehow worked out their differences with keyboardist Rick Wakeman, and Wakeman returned to replace the departed Patrick Moraz - maybe it was the last album's approach that won him over, who knows. In any case, the song lengths on Going For The One started to become slightly shorter, but the arrangements and playing are no less complex. Unfortunately, the song quality and focus has slipped a bit and the production, while not necessarily messier than the last album, is weak - often Jon Anderson's vocals get buried in the mix, and the instruments blend into each other in such a fashion that there aren't all that many standout performances from the individual musicians.

Not that there aren't any incredibly creative ideas or undeniable classic songs, though. The opening title track actually features, of all things, Steve Howe playing some sort of boogie woogie part on steel guitar, and you can almost line dance to it. Very quickly, however, it turns into a typical soaring Yes anthem, with Jon Anderson vocally hitting his most insane high notes ever, and lyrically poking fun at his own fantasy world approach. The song is also incredibly catchy, with a highly singable chorus and a great, great harmonized ending. "Parallels" is also quite an interesting Chris Squire composed tune whose main feature is Rick Wakeman playing on a giant church organ, something that unsurprisingly produces a very cool effect. And although the song itself might be slightly obscured by the production, the bass playing is flat out awesome and the chorus melody is perhaps the most infectious thing on the album.

Though it's not the best song on here - that honor would have to go to the shattering epic ballad "Turn Of The Century", which is truly one of the most gorgeous songs I've ever heard from anyone, and it gets my vote as the best song under 10 minutes the band ever did. The way the acoustic guitar, keyboards, and Jon's passionate vocals (some of his best, in fact) combine produces a real otherworldly effect that, at high volume, is just about the most majestic pieces of music ever - a rough approximation of heaven put onto vinyl, it's just that good. And the way the spectacular melody and beautiful music all comes together at its' ending - wow. Too great for words - this epic surely makes me forget about the crappy production for awhile so I can concentrate on how beautiful these guys could be when they really clicked.

As awe-inspiring as side one is, though, the remaining couple of songs on side two fall a bit flat. For one thing, "Wonderous Stories", though not really a bad pop ballad (it's quite pretty, actually), strikes me as little more than a rewrite of 'Your Move' from "I've Seen All Good People". And then there's the big problem of "Awaken" that closes the album. Quite a few people love this song, and if I'm not mistaken the band themselves actually consider it their pinnacle, but to my ears it just doesn't have the power and effortless flow of their previous epic pieces, and I just can't see how its' 15-1/2 minute length could be at all justifiable. The problem with it isn't even the fact that the lyrics are completely off the deep end, it's just that the melodies on here (with the exception of possibly the 'master of images...' bits) don't really manage to captivate me that much.

That being said, while it still remains one of the more underwhelming Yes epics out there, I do like the song more than I used to. The long and quiet harp/organ portion finally broke through to me a little more, as it strikes me as a captivating and beautiful enough venture into mellower territory, and the way the melody comes full circle at the ending climax is just fine, but overall, I still don't get a great feeling about it - it mostly chases its' tail with so-so melodies and ambience without much in the way of exciting musical ideas, even though it has grown on me a bit more to justify bumping up the rating of the album to a low 8, especially since the first side is still too excellent a stretch of Yes music to make me give it any lower. Indeed, any album with "Turn Of The Century" and "Going For The One" on it is well worth your listening time.

UPDATE: Okay, while I still wouldn't rate this album as highly as the 72-74 stuff (Tales excepted), the second side has gotten somewhat better for me over time, and the title track has even crept into my top 10 Yes songs (it's even MORE fun and majestic to listen to than ever!), so I'm increasing the rating another half point. I've learned to get past the 'Your Move' retreading of "Wonderous Stories" a little more and appreciate what a beautiful melody (and keyboard embellishments) the song has in its' own right. Plus, even if I'm still not totally sold on the quiet organ/harp probe and very end of "Awaken", and still think fans who call it one of Yes' peaks are insane, I really like WAY too much of the song now to call it a 'low point'. Pompous as it is, the 'master of images' part does have a powerful transcendant quality to it I always love hearing, and everything involving the guitar work, including the main riff and chaotic soloing, are excellent. I'd probably now call it a very good, but also very flawed, epic with some great moments and some hit-and-miss ones (especially in some of the melodies). A shame about the album's overall production, though, as it still distracts me quite a bit at times ("Parallels", especially). Maybe it's time to pick up the new remaster?

OVERALL RATING: 8.5

After a three year hiatus, during which time the members of the band all released solo albums (some of which were successful, some of which weren't), the group reformed to record again (with Rick Wakeman in tow... he had left after Tales From Topographic Oceans and didn't play on Relayer... I should've mentioned that). And for once, there are actual normal length songs on this record. OK, not ALL the songs are normal length (the closing epic "Awaken" lasts for 16 minutes), but 3 of these songs are below the 6 minute mark! Wow! And the other ("Turn Of The Century") doesn't hit 9 minutes! Whoa! Yes is scaling back their ambitions!

Well, not quite, actually. You see, Yes just took all the complex, twisted prog arrangements of previous albums and crammed them into shorter song structures (except for the slight, but pretty "Wondrous Stories", which actually IS a normal 3-minute pop song). The title track, for example, starts out pretty normally, but soon evolves into a prog rocker as complex as anything else the band did. Great tune, too - everything just swirls around and around and really sucks you in. "Turn Of The Century" is a very quiet ballad that just grows and grows until it's big, loud, and pompous, but still completely gorgeous. And to anyone who hates Jon Anderson... give that song a listen and tell me you still hate him! And "Parallels"... man, what a cool song! It's got a church organ on it! A real one! Recorded in a cathedral! And it fits! And the song, as is typical by Yes standards, is really cool, too. Very memorable and complex.

And then there's the big one... "Awaken". It isn't a side long this time, but at 16 minutes, it may as well be. It starts out VERY quiet and subdued, then explodes into a frantic guitar fiesta, before going into this AWESOME organ bit with thrilling (for once) vocals from Jon. Then.... well, I won't go on anymore, except I'll say that the big ending climax is one of the coolest things I've ever heard. Opinion splits on this one, but I find it to be one of Yes's all time best numbers, easily ranking with tunes like "Close To The Edge". Hey, Jon Anderson says that it's his FAVORITE. This is a one of a kind album, with tons of excellent parts, so snatch it up sometime.

OVERALL RATING: 9

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCENT: I AM 21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as of Sept. 1, 2001. God, I love being me. Anyway.... Oh yeah. Going For The One. Boy, is this ever a fucked-up record here. Five tunes are on this one; quite a lot by Yes' standards. And while none of them are quite on a par with past masterpieces, all five are at worst not bad and at best very original and sometimes amazing. Case in point: the title track. What starts out as a country tune quickly turns into a dazzling showcase for Jon Anderson's vocal range and Steve Howe's amazing guitar craftwork. In true Yes fashion, the last 2 and a half minutes are an elongated coda, which Jon uses as a perfect time to stretch his already insane lyric writing to a new level of drug-fueled frenzy. And I love it!! Yeah, go ahead and make your wisecracks. I love this tune!

"Turn Of The Century" is a welcome change of pace. Another Howe-led tune, this one is a slow thingy that, I'll admit, I think is a bit too long (at nearly 8 minutes), but does at least give the listener enough original ideas to not be boring, and Jon's vocals are just majestic here. This man is truly an original figurehead in the world of vocalists, you gotta at least admit THAT much, even if you think his voice rivals Geddy Lee in it's ability to drive one to a psychotic break of postal proportions. Anyway, so after this tune, an almost inaudible keyboard segue brings us into "Parallels", which is equal parts Yes and 80's arena rock. An unlikely combination, but get used to it. At any rate, it's eons better than the shit they call "music" on that dismal 90125 record. And that pipe organ that is prevalent throughout... man. It's like they wrote the song for me.

So then begins Side 2, I do believe. "Wonderous Stories" continues in the "And You And I"/"To Be Over" vein, and boy oh boy is it ever a pretty one. It was a hit for the boys, and rightly so. That verse melody is God-like, and the segue into the chorus is just perfect. It comes up without you ever noticing until you realize, "Hey, that's the chorus!" Sure, this tune ain't as complex as pevious tunes, but it has it's subtle quirks, such as the constant and effortless modulation from B major, to A major, to E major as the chorus begins. "Awaken" closes out the opus, but at 15:38, it's almost an opus in it's own right. It's sections are sure pretty when they need to be and very dark and aggressive when the need arises. The intro is pretty, I guess, but that next part (you know, "Awaken Gentle Mass Touch") is just melancholy as ever.

After that, the next part begins the constant modulation trend you see all throughout the song. The only time you feel resolution is every once in awhile, when they fall on E major again with a huge accent on that beat. Confusing? Yes. Fucking brilliant? God yes. A church-organ-hymn vibe follows for awhile, then the previous section returns, this time slower, and then the coda comes up; you can tell that everyone is just playing their hearts out. Then the soft intro part somes back, in timely fashion, and then..... pluh. It's, like, the end, man! You've really got to hear this tune. So there you go. Sure, a lot of it is different, but that was what Yes was all about: being different than themselves. And boy did they do a good job of that.

OVERALL RATING: 9

[email protected] (Rich Bunnell)

COMMENTS

[in response to the second review:]

I'd actually give this one an eight (though I gave it a nine in prior Yes reader comments). I like all five of the songs, but as you said the muddy, vocal-hiding production really detracts from the good material, and I personally think that the album is a little too short. More songs than the previous three albums, but far less material. Still, the first three songs are among the best that the band ever wrote, and the last two songs, while weaker and more meandering, are still inoffensive. But man, they should dig out the masters for this thing and reproduce it or something.

[email protected] (John McFerrin)

It's funny that Grazer mentions that he sometimes gets sad from listening to this album, because for a long time I got the same feeling (and in some ways I still do). I also get the feeling that the band knew it too - for the longest time, I couldn't shake the feeling that when Anderson cried out, "shall we now bid farewell, farewell!" at the end of Awaken, he was saying goodbye on behalf of the incredible music that the band had spent the '70's producing.

And speaking of Awaken - I think you people are all nuts. Awaken positively RULES (and Rich Bunnell knows to whom I'm referring when I say that Steve Sullivan can kiss my ass on that one). The conclusion kicks my ass every time, and I love love love the quiet harp/organ probe.

TORMATO (1978)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Onward, Circus Of Heaven. LOW POINTS: Madrigal, Arriving UFO, Don't Kill The Whale.

And so begins the part of Yes' history that we don't like to talk about that much. You know that the golden years are officially over since from this point forward we are always pointing out which one sounds the most like the classic Yes, and not which one is classic Yes. That's the way things go, I guess. Occasionally there's a band like the Beatles who had the advantage of breaking up before they released an album like this, but most other bands out there are not so lucky. Sad, isn't it? Could you imagine if the peak period hadn't ended, and Yes were still as great as they ever were, and offered so many more classics, stop me before I break out into tears.

The first thing you'll notice on this album (other than a Yes cover even worse than Big Generator) is the presence of a few true stinkers and a bunch of mediocrity. Something got knocked out of place somewhere. Almost everything on the album is sounding terrible and disjointed. Yes are now some crazy pop-prog sort of thing, and it makes Tormato suck. However note there are those who like it and even some who call it the best Yes album ever released. Maybe you'll be one of these people. I am not.

The opening "Future Times/Rejoice" is decent enough, despite a silly and annoying drum beat, but I find it difficult to explain how AWFUL "Don't Kill The Whale" and "Madrigal" are. "Release, Release" has a few redeeming qualities like a neat chorus and some decent bass lines, yet still it doesn't work that well and ends up just mediocre. "Arriving UFO" is the story of Jon Anderson being contacted by his home planet. Nah. Anyway, getting right back on track, "Arriving UFO" sucks, with really cheezy sound effects, awful keyboard work, and an ending that seems to last forever. The lyrics are ridiculous, but not the wonderful ridiculous we had for the past albums; these lyrics are just crap.

Luckily the short, catchy "Circus Of Heaven" is musically better (although lyrically the absolute worst on the album, and the part with the kid speaking nearly ruins the entire song), and "Onward" a very nice entry, the finest on the album. Closing things off is "On the Silent Wings Of Freedom," and despite what many critics say, I like it. Nothing spectacular, of course, but I'd listen to it ten times before I'd listen to "Don't Kill the Whale" or "Arriving UFO" once. It drags toward the last few minutes, and as I said before it is not spectacular. Nothing on this album comes close to spectacular. Avoid.

OVERALL RATING: 5

HIGH POINTS: Onward, Madrigal. LOW POINTS: Arriving UFO, Don't Kill The Whale, On The Silent Wings Of Freedom.

I really don't know how this happened. Going For The One first signaled a change in shorter compositions for Yes, and this album continues in that area - that I have no problem with. What I do have a problem with is that here, the band decided to reinvent themselves as a fruity pop/rock outfit with much less in the way of progressive leanings than before. Sure, in a few years time they would have the pop thing worked out just fine, but for now, this is an enormous falloff in the songwriting department, and several of these songs are among the absolute worst they'd done to this point. The biggest problem seems to be the choice of keyboard tone Rick Wakeman goes for here - instead of very tastefully fitting the overall atmosphere of the band, here he goes for an extremely cheezy, overly bright and laughably dated sound that threatens to spoil a lot of the songs.

Take the awful "Don't Kill The Whale" for instance, an already too novelty-ish eco-anthem with a really weird funk effect on the bass. His keyboard solo here in particular makes me want to throw up. And Jon Anderson is hardly better here - his lyrics have gone into the area of naive childishness instead of powerful meaningless epic mysticism. "Circus Of Heaven" is a prime example - though the main melody is entertaining, the lyrics and the spoken word part by his son are frighteningly cringe-worthy. Chris Squire puts some kind of weird funk effect on his bass and in the process is mixed way too high (like on the aforementioned "Don't Kill The Whale"), Alan White shows why he can't hold a candle to Bill Bruford in his increasingly simplistic style here, and Steve Howe... well, let's just say he doesn't really do all that much noteworthy.

Even the longer pieces here are extremely weak B-side material compared to anything else they put out before - "Future Times/Rejoice" has a good anthemic melody in its' opening portion, but the song refuses to do anything interesting with it, and the second half is extroardinarily dull. The closing "On The Silent Wings Of Freedom" is hardly better - it really fails to make any impact in its' tiresome groove, plodding arrangement and weak melody at almost 8 minutes as probably the most non-descript Yes epic of all time. And I haven't even mentioned the nadir yet - "Arriving UFO" may have good instrumental breaks, but the 'alien' keyboard sounds are corny beyond words, plus the melody and lyrics are appropriately annoying, making it quite representative of the overwhelming fruityness here.

Fortunately, there are definitely some good moments on here that prevent me from calling it awful. The best songs on here are actually the ballads - "Onward" is a really beautiful Squire-composed love song whose chorus has the most memorable and striking melody on here by far, and "Madrigal", though a little underlong and unmemorable the first few times you hear it, has a very, very nice acoustic guitar/harpsichord driven arrangement while it's on. And finally, although "Release, Release" is denied highlight status on account of its' obvious melody and idiotic 'live drum solo' section, its a very reasonable driving rocker otherwise, and it's amusing to hear the band's attempts to make it a normal rock song. Overall, though, the fruity pop aspect of the Yes sound is not what I love the band for - at all. And what an awful album cover and title!

OVERALL RATING: 5

Yeah, I like it. Kiss my ass. But seriously, I don't see what everyone finds so offensive about this album. Most of the melodies, even though they may be attached to record-breakingly stupid lyrics, are rather well crafted. Take "Don't Kill The Whale"'s verse melody. It has drive and is pure Yes. But I will admit the song is rather cheesy. Actually most of this album is pure fuckin' Sharp Cheddar. Thankfully, that shit is right up my alley! "Release, Release" is also cheesy but cute and damn well played. Actually, most of the songs here are very well played, although it is hard to tell because the mix is horrible. Enh... oh well. Another one people can't stand, but I love, is "Circus of Heaven". Yeah the synths are dated and, well, FUCKIN CHEESY but the rest of the song (yes, even Jon's son talking) is so harmless and innocent you can't hate it! Jesus, ALL of these songs are just too damned innocent. It's like talking to a 6-year old. Sure, it will make little sense and can be annoying at times, but the kid is just so pissin' cute that you actually have fun talking to him!

BUT!!!! But, not all of these songs are good. I mean, even the six-year old can be a little fucking bastard sometimes, eh? Hence, "On the Silent Wings of Freedom". It does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for almost 8 minutes. And the fact that it's the last track makes me think that the boys were running out of ideas or something. But that doesn't exclude "Madrigal" which ain't that great either. It kind of sits there too, but at least it has a good melody and good harpsichord work by Wakeman. And it's only 2 minutes long. Bonus.

In short, despite the shitty production, the cheesy Styx-esque synths and youthful innocence, I believe that Tormato holds enough musical meat to yield itself an 8. But just barely! I mean, it's not like Fragile's 8 which was almost a 9. This is like Yes (the first album)'s 8. Surprisingly good, for the most part. Just don't let anyone catch you listening to it. Snoogens!

OVERALL RATING: 8

DRAMA (1980)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Into The Lens, Tempus Fugit, Machine Messiah, White Car. LOW POINTS: Run Through The Light.

There are three albums that to me don't seem to get the praisethat they deserve. The first, the most criticized of the three, is King Crimson's Lizard, which is often viewed as an unmelodic bore, but I see as a brilliant epic work, with the title track being one of the best songs ever written. The second, perhaps the most underrated of the three is Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother, which may usually be considered a good album, but I myself hear nothing other than one of the best albums of all time, and my second favorite Pink Floyd album. The third and final underrated album is this, Yes' Drama, maybe the least underrated of the three, but people still knock on it often, and never truly respect it beyond "Tempus Fugit." I love Drama, almost as much as the classic stretch of Yes albums, and more than anything the band has done since, except maybe Talk.

First things first, anyone who says "Machine Messiah" sounds like Queensryche (and there are several people who have said this) must really have no idea about Queensryche, since "Machine Messiah" isn't much like them at all. It is about the closest Yes ever got to creating a heavy metal tune, and at a 10+ minute epic, it moves nicely but slowly through several phases, creating an effective mood for a song that could be classified as being close to the "classic Yes" style. "White Car" is maybe a bit too short, but hey, so is "And Your Bird Can Sing" so it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the song is seriously awesome, though no one else seems to think so. I've always loved it, myself, even though it would have been nice to have a little bit more to it. "Does It Really Happen" has a wonderful chorus and is much better than, you know, that other Yes song with the word "happen" in it, released a few years later.

Then opening the second side to the album we have the best song on here, yes, I'm serious, that's right, it's, yep, "Into the Lens." The BEST song on Drama. NO joke. Everyone hates this song, and I just can't understand why. The vocal melodies are fantastic, and the whole song builds up to the point where "I am a camera" becomes one of the most dramatic choruses I've heard. Go ahead. Laugh. And hate the song if you want. I can still enjoy it. Though the one song on the album I just can't seem to enjoy is "Run Through The Light" which is just kind of a boring blah. But "Tempus Fugit" is... awesome to say the least. Almost my favorite on the album (if it were a little longer it would have easily been number one here), and just an all around great song in the classic style to close off a little masterpiece from Yes, by far their best album of the 80s, and all around one of the finest releases the decade had to offer.

OVERALL RATING: 9

HIGH POINTS: Machine Messiah, Tempus Fugit. LOW POINTS: Into The Lens.

A major change occured in the Yes lineup between this album and the last, as apparently it was (rightfully) decided that Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman were mainly to blame for the disaster of Tormato, and that led to their exit from the band. However, despite the loss of two of their most crucial members, Yes moved on (mainly because they had a recording contract still to complete), and replaced Anderson and Wakeman with two members from the Buggles of all bands, vocalist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes. Fortunately, they fit in rather well with Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Alan White (who were eager to continue on in a progressive direction), with Horn's vocals reasonably close to the tone of Anderson (though nowhere near his range) and Downes' playing quite tasteful and appropriate for the mood.

However, the resulting material here, although still at least partially progressive and technically superb, really doesn't resemble the spirit of Yes in the 70's very much (with one major exception) - the production and overall sound seems to be somewhat more modernized, and the lyrics act accordingly. This can be a difficult aspect to get past at first, but the songs themselves are still worthy, even if highly atypical for the band. For instance, "Run Through The Light" and "Does It Really Happen" are really highly New Wave-ish sort of numbers - the former is a somewhat Police-styled song where Trevor Horn does his best Sting impersonation during the verses, and the latter is one of the more curiously quirky and addictive Yes pop numbers, especially in the verse melody and shift to the chorus, and it also helps that Squire's bass playing really rules on this one, particularly towards the end.

These two songs, however, are mostly eclipsed by the highlights here. The first of these, the opening 10 minute epic "Machine Messiah", is actually one of my favorite Yes songs out there. It begins with a great opening metal-ish riff from Howe, with a really cool descending synth sound in the background. It moves hrough an awesome uptempo melody, a positively wonderful chorus, and a very haunting acoustic middle and ending that contributes to the atmosphere, which has quite a noticeable sci-fi feel throughout both its' music and lyrics, which is quite fascinating. A very, very well arranged number here. Then there's the fan favorite "Tempus Fugit", the only real typical Yes rocker. It's a fantastic song, though, as the main keyboard part from Downes, smoking bass playing from Squire, and extremely powerful catchiness - it's also really funny how many times the name 'Yes' is referenced, as if to prove that they can carry on without Jon Anderson, who, incidentally, hates this album.

The other two songs on here, though, really aren't all that good. The minute and a half "White Car", though it does have a bombastic intro that amusingly sounds like it's going to develop into a lengthy epic, is mostly a short tossoff, for one, and the 8-1/2 minute "Into The Lens" is a rather bad extended piece. It's not so much the notorious 'I am a camera...' line, though that crappy chorus does have cheesy singing, but the remainder of the song, which has rather weak melody and painful overdramatics like Styx or someone like that, is just very iffy. Though the album itself is rather short (36 minutes) and only has a couple really awesome songs, this is still a huge improvement over the severe mediocirity of Tormato - it's a mostly successful and often underappreciated transition effort to a new 'pop' oriented era of the band, which would come into fruition on the next album.

OVERALL RATING: 7

Where does the "classic" period end for these guys? Some think Relayer, some Going for the One. But I think this, Drama, is the final chapter of the 9-year reign of "classic" Yes music. But I'll get to that in a minute. Anyway, we all know that this is a very odd version of Yes, with stand-in keyboardist and vocalist Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn, respectively. Neither of whom suck, but unfortunately had very big shoes to fill.

I listen to and view Drama as the album cover shows it, an album of peaks. Three exist on this here record: "Machine Messiah", "Into the Lens" and "Tempus Fugit". The first of these, I initially hated. Hated, hated, hated. But I have since seen the error of my ways. I couldn't get past that boring, simplistc guitar riff starting off "Machine Messiah". But I have since accepted that as well as a part of the whole of a fucking good song. The melody to the verse reflects early Yes, and the big organ chord starting verse 2 is wholly reminiscent of "Yours Is No Disgrace". The development of each musical idea climaxes in grand fashion, and the song crashes down upon itself much like the aforementioned Yes classic did in 1971. Prime, prime shit here, fellas. As it is with "Into the Lens". FUCK THE LYRICS HERE!!! The anount of, well, drama poured into the New-Wave arrangement is unmistakable. I know i heard the same emotion in "Heart of the Sunrise". The ending segment of the song just never seems to want to climax, and when it finally does, it is almost cathartic. All I gotta say is, just ignore the lyrics, as they, like most Yes of the time, mean dick.

Now, before I get to the last peak, I'll talk real quick about two very Buggles-esque tunes, "Run Through the Light" and "Does it Really Happen?". Neither are exceptional enough to be "peaks", per se, but are very catchy and serve the unique purpose of holding the listeners attention between the peaks. I guess these are valleys, but man, what valleys! I will say that they have exceptional moments, such as the verse of "Run Through the Light", the bass work on "Does it Really Happen?", and the codas to both tunes. Don't skip 'em when you listen to the album, but don't go spooging all over your speakers because of them.

At any rate, here we are. Now, stay with me on this one, because what I'm about to say might sound stupid or blaphemous, but it's true: "Tempus Fugit" is the culmination of all that was, is, and will be Yes. Whew, I'm glad I got that out. Now I think you deserve an explanation. Well, let's look at the aspects of Yes' music: 1) superb musicianship, 2) filling arrangements, 3) flat-out catchiness, 4) meaninglessness in lyrics the majority of the time, and 5) a universal message of love the minority of the time. Think back on all of their albums, from Yes all the way through Magnification for that matter. Every album will have at least one, usually 3-5 of these basic guidelines. But no Yes song follows all five of the guidelines at one time. Sure, "Close to the Edge" is well arranged and features amazing instrumentation, but it's not exactly the catchiest thing under the sun. Seriously, did you like it the first time you heard it? I sure didn't.

Anyway, my point is that "Tempus Fugit" not only does all of these things in the span of 5:14, but: embedded in the half love song/half abstract lyrics is the final verse: "If you could see all the roads I have traveled/Towards some unusable last equilibrium/Run like an athlete and die like a/Dead beaten speed freak/An answer to all of the answers to - yes." Yes, I see this song (and album) as the last equilibrium of sorts, and all of this is pointing to the ultimate answer to the question "What is Yes?"... "Do we wait for an answer/Do we leave it unspoken." And that's the entire axis, or turning point if you will. The answer is glaringly simple: Yes is 99% nothing and 1% peace and love. But the peace and love is the capstone to their sound. I think. At any rate, I'm going to bed because I have to work in the morning. I hate being an adult, yo. So think about what I said and let me know what ya think. Peace!

...

What, did you think I was going to claim the third peak was "White Car"?

OVERALL RATING: 9

YESSHOWS (1980)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Wonderous Stories. LOW POINTS: Ritual, Don't Kill The Whale, Time And A Word.

Well, well, well, another live Yes album. The song selection is interesting enough. None of the seven songs on this double album are from Yes' three most popular releases. Instead they all come from the '73-'78 stuff, and while putting "Don't Kill The Whale" on here was not that bright, the rest of the picks are good. Or at least their studio versions are. To be honest most of the versions on here are pretty weak. "Parallels" isn't the same without the big bad organ to back it up. That song was awesome before, and now it just comes and goes. And how can we have "Time And A Word" without the orchestra? NO! That's a terrible idea. If you want to play that song live then drag all of the violinists along with you, or else don't do it. "Going For The One" comes out good, but I can't believe how bad "The Gates Of Delirium" is. Well, maybe not exactly bad, but they play it so fast that they seem to be rushing through it, desperate to get to the next song. I'm a guy who loves "Gates" more than any other Yes song out there, so I am very disappointed by this.

Disc two isn't a whole lot better. "Don't Kill the Whale" is actually better than before, but that doesn't make it good. Why couldn't we have had "Onward" instead? If you must put something from that Tormato album on here at least choose the best song (and only good) on there. And a 28-minute "Ritual" is not what I'm looking for. That's way too long. Sure it's good, but it drags much more than before due to the added length. However, the closing "Wonderous Stories" might be even more beautiful than it was originally. The live setting strengthens the mood and it becomes the best performance here, even better than the original. This doesn't change the fact that we don't need Yesshows, which totally fails to live up to the great Yessongs. Now, these songs are still nothing to be called bad, and after all most of them are Yes classics, so the album still gets a decent score. And the sound quality is much better than their first major live effort. But I still find this release to be quite disappointing.

OVERALL RATING: 6

What a familiar territory to be in... a Yes live album. And I like it! True, Yesshows IS the shortest Yes live album, but it's one of the best, as it contains FOUR tunes you won't find on any other live album! "Parallels" is one of those, really well run-through here too, as it segues out of the Firebird Suite that plays at the top of the record. (Note: The bass in this mix is vicious... I suggest turning your bass down just a hair when you listen to it.) Boy, Jon's voice is really on fire here, too. Anyway, "Time and a Word" is next, and nice to hear every once in awhile. It's good to see that the boys didn't forget about their roots, eh? Anyway, this particular version features piano splashes here and there and super bass work, courtesy of Wakeman and Squire, respectively. And let's not forget Mr. Howe, with some friggin' amazing solos in the outro! The only thing, though: They jump right into "Going For The One" from "Time and a Word". Daring? Proabably. But I think the idea failed miserably. Other than that, "One" sounds better than it ever has, with Jon floating at the top of his range, and the rest of the boys playin' this tune crazier'n ever!

Next is "The Gates Of Delirium". Now, this tune is why I'm reivewing this album. Ya see, I lent my copy of Relayer to my Music History teacher, and I was really itchin' for a little Delirium, so I popped in Yesshows and decided, what the fuck, I'll review it while it's here! Okay, so, this particular version of "Gates", well, seriously knocks my genitalia to fucking China and back! The intro is slowed a bit, which really adds to the drama of the piece. And the rest is sped up. A bit here, a LOT there... oh yeah. For example, the battle section borders on "insane" with the extra speed boost. Also, Jon puts a little extra oomph into his voice, which helps to bring the song alive. I'm tellin' ya! It's awesome to hear that wuss SCREAMING! YEAAH! And I haven't even MENTIONED White's drumming! His technique is solid and smooth, and his emphasis on syncopations really shows the genius he is. Second only to Bruford himself! Wow. I'm in awe right now. These guys are FUCKING AMAZING!!! It's all so tight and amazingly put together and well performed. THIS IS IT!!! As of now, 5:52 pm CST October 15, 2001, YES IS OFFICIALLY MY FAVORITE PROGRESSIVE ROCK BAND!!!!!! Whew.

Anyway, on to Disc 2! "Don't Kill The Whale" reminds me of a Kansas eco-anthem with Yes overtones. Yeesh. Well, it's OKAY, but... yeesh!! Don't kill the fucking WHALE?!?!?! So... Yeah! "Ritual" is next. So I haven't bought Tales From Topographic Oceans yet, right? So I download "Ritual". Not bad! Then I listen to the Yesshows version. Not good! I mean, it could be worse, but it's not as tight as it could been at points, and the drum solo near the end is stretched out to ELP proportions. However! The individual contributions, especially Howe and Squire (and even White at times) are phenomenal and further attribute this band's greatness. For example, the intro. Where it could be tighter at times, there are also points where everything comes together and everyone's individual embellishments added to the tune wonderfully! So there.

And to conclude, we have the simply fantastic "Wonderous Stories". No complaints here, however no outstanding praises either. EXACTLY like the studio version! Like it matters. Good tune, though. So that's that. You know, this could fit on a single CD! Short fucking record for Yes. You know? Half as long as Yessongs, but a point better. Simply great tunes from the post-Close To The Edge period played superbly, this album is a perfect counterpoint to the "classic" Yessongs. So buy it! It's worth the price of a double CD, for sure!

OVERALL RATING: 9

90125 (1983)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Cinema, Hearts, Leave It. LOW POINTS: City of Love, Our Song, Owner Of A Lonely Heart.

I don't see how this, Yes' first mainstream album, is so great, especially after something like Drama came out. In my opinion there isn't a single song on here as good as "Into the Lens" or "Tempus Fugit." All of the prog is gone (which isn't the entire reason why I don't like this album a lot, but I'll admit it is part of the reason), and there are more radio hits on this album than all of the other prog albums combined. "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" is the most notable of these, and I hate that song. Dumb lyrics, stupid chorus, ick. It's probably the worst opening song that Yes ever did. "Hold On" isn't a whole lot better, though I will admit it is a slight improvement, and "It Can Happen" has some awful lyrics and the vocal melody on the chorus is broken into single syllables in a most annoying matter. "It can happen to you, It can happen to me, It can happen to ev-er-yone e-ven-tu-al-y!" How bad can it get?

Fortunately "Changes," which has a really neat intro in which the keyboards start out with a nice simple melody before slowly being joined by everything else, picks the album up a bit and the instrumental "Cinema" is a great one, and a near-perfect way to finish the side. I believe it won a well-deserved Grammy for best instrumental or something like that. I think I'll go so far as to call it the best song on the album. Side 2 begins on a high note with "Leave It," a fantastic piece accompanied by a great bass line and a very fun mood and lyrics. "Our Song" and "City Of Love" are sadly another pair of weak tracks to follow up the superb side opener. They're just so bad, almost down there with the lesser numbers off of Big Generator and Union.

However to finish off the album is the seven-plus minute "Hearts." Unlike "It Can Happen," the vocal melodies here are really good and that along with a strong, steady beat and chorus to carry it smoothly through it's length make it my bet for the second best on the album, only a hair behind "Cinema." Now maybe based off of the things I've said I should give this a 5, and If I listen to this album and start thinking of Drama, that's what I would give it. But if it's not broken down into individual songs and simply taken the album as a whole (and ignore "Owner" and "City Of Love"), it's enough mindless fun to earn itself a decent score.

OVERALL RATING: 6

HIGH POINTS: Leave It, Changes, It Can Happen, Hearts. LOW POINTS: City Of Love.

Finally, the big commercial sellout occurs. The previous two albums may have been somewhat more pop-oriented in nature, but there was still a noticeable trace of prog within them. Truthfully, they're nothing compared what would be the final product of the next chapter in Yes history. It began with the exit of Trevor Horn (who left on account of his vocal struggles performing Jon Anderson-sung tunes live and his subsequent unacceptance by the fans for it). Steve Howe and Geoff Downes left to form the supergroup Asia along with Carl Palmer (ELP) and John Wetton (King Crimson), and Yes subsequently broke up. The remaining Yes members (Chris Squire and Alan White) decided to form a new band called Cinema, recruiting guitarist Trevor Rabin and keyboardist Tony Kaye (familiar name eh?), and after realizing they needed a singer, Squire and White somehow managed to resolve their differences with Jon Anderson, and since there were now four out of five members that had spent time with the band (with Horn as the producer, interestingly enough), they decided to revive the name.

Like I said before, the resulting 90125 ended up being the most blatantly pop-oriented and commercialized album the band had recorded up to that point, making full use of the 80's production values. But the material is mostly good! Of course, it kicks off with the song most people know Yes for, as the opening "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" boasts one of the great lamebrained guitar riffs of all time and quite a fine pop melody throughout its' slick, but unabashedly fun, arrangement. The generic slow groove of "Hold On" is even more corporate, especially with its' shiny chorus, but it does have a top-notch melody and good vocal performance to make it worthwhile. And it only gets better from there - the anthem "It Can Happen" combines a sitar with 80's production in such a neat fashion, and the overall melody is just a whole lot of energetic fun.

Then the next three songs form what I consider to be the best stretch of music in the pop era. "Changes" is one of the most infectious Yes songs ever, with a simple, but completely cool-sounding and fast, keyboard intro. The Anderson/Rabin vocal duet in the verses is effective, and the chorus is to the point and extremely energetic. The instrumental "Cinema", though a bit too short to be a highlight, is still a great majestic transition to the album's ultimate highlight. Yup, "Leave It" often doesn't get all that much respect, but I'd say it might actually be the best pop song they ever wrote - it's such an incredibly creative combination of band harmonizing, mechanical production values, and extremely awesome melody for a booming, extraordinarily entertaining anthem. So addictive I can never get enough of it.

Of course, the album can't really sustain those highs for too long, as the next two tracks are somewhat of a weak point. "Our Song" is a generic fast-paced rocker rescued only by solid bass work and a mildly pretty chorus, and the pedestrian anthem "City Of Love" is just awful, with dumb macho singing by Trevor Rabin and stupid, stupid lyrics. The closing "Hearts", however, comes to the rescue in attempting to update the "Time And A Word" peace and love ballad style for the 80's in an epic way (7-1/2 minutes). It actually succeeds in doing so in a big way - despite rambling slightly at the awful guitar solo, the harmonized chorus ranks as one of the most beautiful moments in Yes history, and the melody is simply fantastic. It's quite an appropriate way to end the beginning of a new era - even if 90125 is hardly prog oriented, it shows the band adapting to 80's pop trends in a smashing way. It's also their best album for quite a long while.

OVERALL RATING: 8

Yes reforms as a power pop band! Who would've seen it coming? This review really does need a preliminary tagline - if you dislike pop music and only like Yes due to their progressive-ness, under no circumstances should you buy this album. There is absolutely no prog on this album at any point. The closest they come to playing prog is having a sitar in one song and having a couple of songs in time signatures besides 4/4. Other than that... 80's hard rockin' guitar pop ahoy! Don't buy this expecting synth pop either... this album is heavy heavy heavy on the guitars. Blame (or thank) Trevor Rabin, who joined the band and is basically responsible for most of the material here.

Oh, which reminds me - the lineup here (and from now on) is a real mess - Chris Squire and Alan White are still there, as they always are, but Wakeman and Howe are out (actually, Wakeman was out of the previous record, Drama, as well) and Tony Kaye (from the first 3 albums... remember?) and Trevor Rabin are in. Jon Anderson had quit Yes perviously, and rejoined for this album at the last second, which means that he had very little to do with this album other than singing on it. No mysticism or bizarre pseudo-religious imagery here. Nope, instead you get "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" and "Hearts" and "City Of Love".

Which leads me to my point... I don't care that this doesn't sound like Yes. I don't care that it's heavy guitar pop. I don't care that the lyrics are kinda trite. I don't care that there's no prog here at all. All I care about is that the songs are good. And you know what? Every song here is good. Every one. No bad songs. At all. Some are even really good! You've heard "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" before, right? Catchy guitar riff? Neat atmosphere? Good singing? Good 80's guitar solo? Did you like it? If so, be sure to get this album... you'll like every song on here. Which isn't to say that "Owner" is the best song here... actually, this is an extremely even album.

The only song that strikes me as being slightly inferior is "Leave It", which sounds kinda cheesy and has a really dumb intro, but has strong enough harmonies to make up for it. As for the others... I guess I should give special notice to "It Can Happen", which is the song with the sitar and a fantastically catchy chorus, "Changes", which has the best chorus here, competant vocals by Trevor Rabin, and a superb melody, and "Hearts", which sounds closer to classic Yes than anything else here, though it's certainly a pop song (and a very good one at that). And "City Of Love" is so over the top and goofy and heavy that you HAVE to like it. And, well, I could go on. This is a really good album. If you aren't prejudiced against pop music, you should give it a try - you just might like it.

OVERALL RATING: 8

[email protected] (Rich Bunnell)

COMMENTS

[in response to the second review:]

THANK YOU for giving notice to "Leave It." That song is indeed awesome, and it probably has the best arrangement of their pop era. The funny thing is that it starts out like it's going to be the stupidest song ever, with the "All Good People" wannabe intro and the Bobby McFerrin-ish first verse, but it ends up becoming the most complete song on the album. As for the rest of the review, I agree completely with it, right down to your choices for the good and bad songs. Whodathunkit?

BIG GENERATOR (1987)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Holy Lamb, Love Will Find A Way. LOW POINTS: Big Generator, Shoot High Aim Low, Final Eyes, I'm Running.

Although plenty of people would disagree with me, I say that this album is even worse than Union (i.e. the worst Yes album ever). At least Union had a couple of really good songs on it; the best on there were better than anything from Big Generator. The mainstream pop act that began on 90125 continues here, but unlike the previous album there is nothing here all that great. Instead you'll get about half a dozen reasons why the majority classic rock fans absolutely detest the 1980s, or at least what happened to classic rock bands when they hit the 80s. It seems it took a little longer for the 80s to get to Yes, though; they were able to release at the very least decent material all the way up until '87. Wow. But not anymore.

All sorts of terrible lyrics, corny melodies, and dumb synth effects are found everywhere on Big Generator, and the songs suffer greatly because of it. "Love Will Find A Way" and "Holy Lamb" are good, and "Rhythm Of Love" is okay, but the rest are mostly very bad. First of all, "Love Will Find A Way" has a really neat symphonic intro before some nice guitar lines. The intro is the best part of the album, actually. Afterward the song is just good, nothing great. The other good song, "Holy Lamb," is the shortest song on the album, but it's easily my favorite with pretty acoustic strumming and a very peaceful feel . The decent track, "Rhythm Of Love," is an upbeat and catchy 80s pop song, but it still is an 80s pop song and that fact drags it down some. The eighties were simply not the decade for pop songs. Nevertheless "Rhythm of Love" is one of the reasons this album gets a 4 and not a 2.

Now for a few of the many problems. First of almost all of the songs are too long, especially "Shoot High, Aim Low," "Final Eyes," and "I'm Running," all of which have at least three minutes that they could have done without. Ahh, remember the days when we could complain about songs that were three times as long as these, like "Close To The Edge," as being too short? Oh well. The second big problem, one that is certain to pop up on an album with this low of a rating and also one I mentioned above, is of course that some of the songs are terrible. To just name a couple that really drag the album down from what it could of been (which is still not much), I'll say tracks two and three, "Big Generator" and the aforementioned overlong "Shoot High, Aim Low," are about as bad as Yes can get. Except in the case that you think 90125 is Yes' best album by far and all of the 70s prog stuff is dull boring crap, stay far away from this one.

OVERALL RATING: 4

HIGH POINTS: Rhythm Of Love, Love Will Find A Way. LOW POINTS: Big Generator, Almost Like Love.

It took four years for the band to follow up on the success of 90125, and Big Generator continues into even more mainstream, but this time a little bit too overly corporate, territory. On first glance at the horrendously ugly yellow and light purple cover artwork, song titles and really stupid album title, it certainly doesn't make a good first impression. As far as the actual music goes, it is indeed a huge step down from the previous album, as the 80's gimmickry is somewhat overdone in several tracks, while going farther and farther away from the band's prog roots and into contemporary pop and hard rock, due in no small part to Trevor Rabin, who was increasingly taking creative control of the band. That said, the end result, with all its' obvious flaws and generic tendencies, is still a half-decent offering, and certainly preferable to the fruity Tormato, since it does have its' share of fine tunes and very few stinkers.

As for these lows here, the only really obviously awful one is in the form of the title track, which utilizes late 80's production gimmicks such as stupid horns, generic hard rock riffs, mechanical harmonies, and generic pop melody in the worst possible fashion, with that pathetic "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" ripoff chorus ('BIIIIIIIG GENERATOR!'), but even that one has somewhat pretty verses courtesy of Anderson's vocals. The horn-filled "Almost Like Love" is just about as stupid, as it's pure contemporary rubbish on the surface, but the hilarious 'preachin' it' delivery from Jon at least rescues it from being much, much worse. "I'm Running" is better than those two, as it has a pretty neat 'rain forest' atmosphere going for it at least, but it's ultimate downfall is that it's totally overlong and lacking musical ideas.

The rest of the songs here, though, are somewhat enjoyable at least, even if not the most substantial tunes in the world. "Shoot High Aim Low" is only somewhat good as another slow moving 7 minute Anderson/Rabin duet with a soaring chorus... and stupid lyrics ('with a steel guitar and the love you give me' eh?). Still nice, though. The highlights "Rhythm Of Love" and "Love Will Find A Way" (what is it with these songs that have 'love' in the title?) are even strong shiny pop numbers. The first of these actually has a cool arrangement, with the harp and Beach Boys-style harmonies working with its' quite solid melody (solid enough to be the best song here in fact), and the second is quite memorable and energetically catchy, helped out by the cool symphonic intro and the laughably stupid line 'I eat at Chez Nous'.

The remaining two numbers on the second side are acceptably pretty if overly generic numbers that serve as good background music, much like most of this album. There's not much else to say about "Final Eyes" other than the chorus is rather nice ('and I know you think there's nothing'), and the closing "Holy Lamb" is an average, though pretty, acoustic tune from Jon Anderson that actually has a hint of religious mysticism in the lyrics for once. The bottom line for me is that Big Generator is certainly not as bad as it's often advertised in my humble opinion, but unlike the fresh-sounding 90125, it clearly shows this incarnation of the band hitting a brick wall in terms of musical creativity.

OVERALL RATING: 6

Four long years after 90125 surprised everyone by being a huge hit, Yes got back together and made another album. This one's pretty weird, though - the songs are all pulling in three separate direction. First of all, there's the desire to be catchy and concise like on 90125. Second, there's the corporate songwriting element (AKA "Come on everybody! Let's make an annoying song that will be dated in less than a year!" syndrome). And finally, since Jon Anderson actually played an important role in these recording sessions, we have the desire to by mystical and deep, just like the Yes of old. As you can imagine, the resultant album is a mess, but not an entirely unpleasant one. For the most part, this album's actually pretty good.

Well, at least most of the album is good. Two tracks here point to the horror of side 2 of the Union album 4 years down the road, and those are the moronic title track (what the hell is a "Big Generator" anyway?) and the equally stupid "Almost Like Love" which is at least amusingly bad. The title track is a low point in Yes's career - no melody, REALLY stupid lyrics (like I said before... "Big Generator"? What the hell!), and a REALLY annoying vocal delivery. As you could probably guess, THESE are the corporate tracks. Damn, they even have those lame squealing 80's noises and cheesy horns and everything. For the love of God, PLEASE skip those two songs!

The rest of the album, believe it or not, is actually a quite worthy follow up to 90125. The heavy guitars are much more subdued here, and the writing is certainly less commercial than on the last album (though whether that's good or not is up to you). Things really do start out great, with the fantastic pop-rocker "Rhythm Of Love". Fantastically catchy in a fantastic way. It's fantastic! "Love Will Find A Way" is really pretty, as is "Shoot High Aim Low". The latter is even kind of dark sounding, which is a nice change of pace, considering it's sandwiched in between the two HORRIBLE songs mentioned above. Great chorus, too.

The other three songs are quite different from anything on 90125, though. These are the tunes that sound like our old friend Mr. Anderson played an important role in. "Final Eyes" isn't anything great, but the other two are good! "I'm Running"... hell, I LOVE "I'm Running". It starts with one of the coolest bass lines I've ever heard (really!), and it moves through all kinds of cool sections and doesn't bore me at all in its nearly 8 minute running time. And the closing "Holy Lamb (Song For Harmonic Convergence)", despite its cringe-inducing title, is a nice, gentle, acoustic way to end the album. It's pretty! Still, this album isn't exactly creative or anything, and points MUST be subtracted for those two aforementioned atrocities, but this isn't as bad as its often made out to be. You can probably find it for under 3 bucks, so if you see it cheap, it's worth it.

OVERALL RATING: 6

COMMENTS

[email protected]

I actually like this album. A lot. 'Rhythm of Love' is definitely the best of the songs here, and I particularly love the Beach Boys-type intro.

'I'm Running' is another high point on the album, the atmosphere is Yes almost at their best. Great chorus too.

The only one that sucks is the title track, which sounds like the worst of the eighties. If not for that one and 'Holy Lamb', (which doesn't really suck, but is pretty forgettable) this would be a pretty strong Yes album.

I give it a 7, and a high one at that.

ANDERSON, BRUFORD, WAKEMAN, HOWE (1989)

released by Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: Brother Of Mine, Birthright. LOW POINTS: Quartet, Teakbois.

Unhappy with the way Trevor Rabin was increasingly taking songwriting control of the band, Jon Anderson left the group (which subsequently preceded Yes' demise yet again) and hooked up with a few of his former bandmates by the names of Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe to complete a lineup composed of 4/5-ths of the musicians involved with the band's best efforts Fragile and Close To The Edge, with bass duties taken care of by Tony Levin. That meant Chris Squire wasn't around for this one, and his insistence that the other members not release the album under the Yes name is the sole reason it was released under the ABWH one.

Anyway, the resulting album was marketed as a return to the classic Yes sound, with Roger Dean cover artwork and subsections underneath the long epics, but only the opening "Themes", with two of its' three sections being instrumental, is really prog-rock like (and most of that tune passes by without much notice). Other numbers like "Fist Of Fire", "The Meeting" and "Let's Pretend" are short pop-oriented tunes, and while the first of these is kind of a neat catchy rocker, I can't for the life of me remember how the other two go, even if they sound highly gorgeous while they're on as piano-oriented and acoustic ballads respectively. "Birthright" is even a politically oriented atmospheric tune, recounting an explosion of an atom bomb on the Aborigine nation of Woomera, and set to music, it's fairly majestic and convincing, despite that chanting at the end. Nice acoustic groove in there too.

Even the longest epics here are really only a few short pop bits connected together under one common title. Not that this approach is bad in itself, but on here it only produces mixed results. The best of these (and my favorite on the album) is the 10-minute "Brother Of Mine", which musically recalls a late period Genesis extended number (circa Invisible Touch), though it's not quite as good, even if really nice in places, with a good flow between parts and fine energy, and the 9 minute "Order Of The Universe" is mostly very entertaining (even with really obvious generic melodies contained within), with a fine opening instrumental section to boot.

On the minus side, though, the 9-1/2 minute "Quartet" is really dull, fruity and sappy (especially the lame 'She Gives Me Love' section where Anderson decides to reference a number of Yes song titles) and "Teakbois" is an uncomfortable 7-1/2 minute diversion into mambo/reggae that perversely enough is the catchiest tune here, though not exactly in a good way (even if the 'some of you couldn't get it...' section is pretty cool in a dumb sounding way). In all, none of this stuff is really any better than just good, though more importantly, there's nothing really awful here either (just somewhat boring and/or corny weaker material) - considering the Yes albums this is stuck in between, that's a good thing. An overall nice, but definitely not essential, album.

OVERALL RATING: 6

UNION (1991)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Masquerade, Shock To The System, Lift Me Up, I Would Have Waited Forever. LOW POINTS: Dangerous (Look In The Light of What You're Searching For), Angkor Wat, Miracle Of Life, The More We Live - Let Go, Saving My Heart.

Union is considered by most people to be Yes' worst album, as well as one of the worst albums ever done by a progressive rock band. I personally disagree. I can't see how this is so much worse than crap like Tormato. Sure it's a really bad album, but the first four songs are great. "Masquerade" is a terrific acoustic instrumental piece, almost as good the classic "Mood For A Day." "I Would've Waited Forever" and "Lift Me Up" are both solid, and I really like "Shock To The System." Great hard rock tune, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Ok, maybe a little.

The rest of the album is worthless, but you probably didn't need me to tell you that. There may be a couple moments of enjoyment to be found somewhere in there (the chorus of "Holding On" is decent, and "Evensong," is passable), but not very many. Most people can go more in depth and complain about all of the billions of flaws, so I'll just summarize. Any album, no matter how great or how bad, with songs like "Miracle Of Life," "Ankgor Wat," or "Dangerous (Look Into the Light of What You're Looking for)," which are worse than anything on Big Generator (title track included), is almost a guaranteed stinker. Union is definitely no exception. Yet on here the quality is already pretty low in the first place. I should give this a 4, but the first few songs are enough to bump this up just a little. It's worse than Tormato, and that's not all that easy to do. Luckily, this was the last piece of crap Yes would ever give.

OVERALL RATING: 5

HIGH POINTS: Lift Me Up, Miracle Of Life. LOW POINTS: Angkor Wat, Dangerous, Saving My Heart, Silent Talking, The More We Live - Let Go, Without Hope You Cannot Start The Day, Holding On.

And now we come to the often bashed glorious annihilation, which interestingly enough began as a seemingly great idea. The record company (and Jon Anderson) decided to merge the two incarnations of Yes, ABWH and YesWest. With the two creative forces combined, it was almost like the project was too good to be true, and it was. Surprisingly, though, even with an evil corporate production cloud hanging over virtually all this material, not to mention only one lineup at a time playing on each track, with session musicians thrown in to boot, the album actually doesn't start off all that bad. "I Would Have Waited Forever", despite its' somewhat generic and rambling verse melody, has a moving enough chorus, with appropriate 'ahhh's and all, and even the much-maligned obnoxious rocker "Shock To The System" has a really neat guitar riff that shows up throughout.

The following tracks "Masquerade" and "Lift Me Up" are even better, the former as a beautiful, though unfortunately short, Steve Howe acoustic guitar piece, and the latter as a rather good 'progressive gospel' with an inspirational chorus that succeeds despite the overblown production. Unfortunately, two pieces of garbage follow in the corporate plodding ballad "Without Hope You Cannot Start The Day" (with a horrible 'it must be love, must be love' chorus) and the contemporary mechanical reggae of "Saving My Heart", though they're succeeded by another good number in "Miracle Of Life". It may have a really goofy arrangement, and a lot of it is unmemorable, but I'm always getting that chorus stuck in my head. And there you have it, if this album ended at that point, it would still be around as long as Close To The Edge, and only a slight step down from the previous efforts, as I'd probably give it a high or solid 5.

Well normally I wouldn't be praising such mediocrity, but the album unfortunately doesn't end there, and I'm truly at a loss for words to describe the tracks that follow. 'Atrocious' might be way too nice of a word for the jaw-droppingly horrible tuneless rockers like "Silent Talking". Hell, the beyond abominable "Dangerous" (which even throws in a generic hip hop beat in the middle!) and "Angkor Wat" (the 'best' example of the melodyless mush of unlistenable Jon Anderson mystical crap this album degenerates into, with a truly cringe-worthy Cambodian poetry section at the end), may be the two worst songs I have in my entire collection. The directionless ballads "The More We Live - Let Go" and "Holding On" are only a little more tolerable than those monstrosities, but that's not saying much.

I really cannot imagine it took much more than the entire running time of these songs to actually compose any of this stuff - there is simply nothing tuneful or listenable about practically all of this last 25 minutes or so stretch of songs. OK, maybe "Evensong" could have been good if this pleasant Levin-Bruford atmospheric duet was more than 50 friggin seconds, and "Take The Water To The Mountain" might be decent if it was reworked a bit, but it's simply too lifeless, especially fitting in with the songs coming before it, not to mention that stupid chanting is a horribly empty way to end the whole album. Add it all up, and you have one of the absolute worst albums I own, and it would easily be a 2 or possibly a 1 if not for the fact this has a couple good numbers worthy of being played every once in awhile. What a disaster, and an embarassing excuse for an eight piece tour.

OVERALL RATING: 3

One of the most infamous albums of all time. As you probably already know, Jon Anderson left Yes and formed Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe with, well, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe. Nobody cared though. And the remaining members of Yes KNEW that without Jon Anderson, well, they didn't have a chance. So the record company executives (Booooooo!) decided to slam the band together, regardless of the fact that (A) Neither band had a good set of songs ready, (B) Neither band particularly wanted to work with the other, and (C) Yes wasn't exactly a big commercial prospect at the time anyway.

The problems with this idea are compounded when you read the liner notes. Not only is the story on how the bands came together peacefully a complete lie, but you see that at NO POINT does the entire lineup play together - this is an ABWH album with 4 songs by the Anderson-free Yes. You might also notice that Jonathan Elias, the producer who has NOTHING to do with Yes, cowrote the majority of these tunes. Corporate songwriting ahoy! And freaking STUDIO MUSICIANS play on every track. As John McFerrin once said, "Studio musicians? IN YES?" The result is an incredibly long album that everyone involved with it has disowned (except for Jon Anderson, who loves everything, ever, except Drama).

The album isn't QUITE as bad as it's often made out to be, though. Actually, there are some pretty damned good songs on here (in the first half, that is). In fact, the first half, with a couple of exceptions, is actually good! "Lift Me Up" and "Miracle Of Life" are two of my all-time favorite Yes songs. No fooling. They're REALLY cool. Very, very pretty, good singing, good atmosphere... and these are from Trevor Rabin, too! The man isn't nearly as evil as he's made out to be by some fans. "I Would Have Waited Forever" is a fine, uplifting (though not spectacular) opener, "Shock To The System", while not a great song, does have a cool guitar riff. And hey, there's even a solo acoustic spot for Steve Howe ("Masquerade") that easily ranks with stuff like "Mood For A Day". Inspired! And "Without Hope You Cannot Start The Day" starts out pretty cool and Queensryche-ish before getting annoyingly corporate. The only completely horrible song on this half is the generic reggae-gospel adult contemporary ballad "Saving My Heart", which sucks, sucks, sucks, worse than the bad stuff on the last album.

When dealing with the second half, though... oh God, is it bad. "Silent Talking"? What the hell is this! There's no melody! There's no ANYTHING! Same goes for "The More We Live - Let Go", "Holding On", "Evensong", and "Take The Water To The Mountain". Horrible. And the other two songs are WORSE! "Dangerous (Look Into The Light Of What You're Searching For)" is as bad as its title suggests, with horrible attempts at being modern and an utterly horrible... well, an utterly horrible EVERYTHING! And even it pales in comparison to the horror of "Angkor Wat", which starts out like the normal bad songs on this half, but gets WORSE!!! They start reciting Cambodian poetry! What in the HELL were they thinking! Agh!

So, that leads to the question of how to rank this... I guess I'd give a high seven to the first half and a LOW one to the second half (really, it's THAT bad), so that averages out to a really, really, REALLY low 4. And I feel bad about ranking it that highly, but that first half is good enough to pull it up some. But unless you see this cheap, do NOT buy it. Repeat - Do NOT buy it!

OVERALL RATING: 4

THE SYMPHONIC MUSIC OF YES (1993)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Mood For A Day, Soon, Close To The Edge. LOW POINTS: Owner Of A Lonely Heart, Starship Trooper.

A fine idea this one was. I've heard some symphonic versions of rock music stuff here and there, most notably from Pink Floyd's Us And Them, (containing an excellent version of "Time" and an atrocious version of "Brick in the Wall Part II," and the fact that every single song on the album was from either Dark Side or The Wall got annoying - oh wait, wrong album) as well as one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever in a ten minute symphonic "Stairway To Heaven," and I really have no problem with the concept. My problems are with the song selection. I don't like "Owner Of A Lonely Heart," and the version on here doesn't change that. No 90125 cut is the kind of song for this sort of thing, and "Starship Trooper," while once a classic, is also not a song for a symphony at all.

The others are fine, though. The shortened "Roundabout" and "Close To The Edge" are a tad disappointing, but "Soon" is just as beautiful as before.The biggest success, one that turned out better than the original, was with "Mood For A Day." It's the exact same guitar piece with some violins added in the background, making it sound no less than perfect. Plus there's more on here! A great version "Wonderous Stories," an interesting "Survival," and a killer "Heart Of The Sunrise." If you're a fan you should go get it. I personally would have included "And You and I" and "To Be Over" in the place of a couple others, but other than that a very good album.

OVERALL RATING: 7

Well, shit. This was bound to happen, I guess. You know, the only really good symphonic/rock album I've heard yet is STILL Days of Future Passed! The Pink Floyd one SUCKED. The Metallica one... well, didn't suck TOO much I guess. And this one. Ummmmmmmm. Well, I am (as of late, at least) a HUGE Yes fan, so I should really be happy this came out, anyway. Well, I'm not. Don't get me wrong, though! Some of the "orchestral" versions we're treated to here are just friggin' good! Case in point: "Roundabout". Even if we get a slightly edited version, the orchestration for all those cool little noodling parts just fits! A nice big brass sound dominates, too.

However, next is the reduced version of "Close To The Edge", which was a bad bad idea. Only 7 MINUTES of it?!?!?! The most orchestrally-conducive parts were omitted, too, like the big organ solo during "I Get Up, I Get Down". That coulda been done by the full string section, huh? Fucking Alan Parsons and his shitty production!! Huh? He did Dark Side of the Moon? Oh. Nevermind. AND Jon don't even sing on this one either, like he did on "Roundabout"! Shit. That's the deal with most of these tracks, though. Deal with it, fucker. Well, as of now, I still haven't heard the original "Wonderous Stories" so I won't comment on this reincarnation of it, except that it is a beautiful orchestral track. Next is the "All Good People" section of "I've Seen All Good People" and shit, is it funny! The orchestra sounds like a big band section and the singing is done by Jon and a gospel choir! HAHAHA!!! It does sound like a gospel song around the middle... "So satisfied I'm on my waaaaaaaayyyyyyyy!!!!" Amen. Still good, though.

Señor Howe's "Mood for a Day" is given the treatment, and some parts work real good, like the pizzicato strings in the beginning and some of the staccato parts near the end, but all too often the strings over-complicate the harmonies of the guitar. Poopie. To make things worse, next we get an orchestra version of "Owner of a Lonely Heart" which makes me want to vomit. It's pretty bad, people. So do things get better from here? Not particularly. "Survival" makes an appearance (you know, from the first album) and it ain't bad! The melody is played by a viola (or a violin. I don't fucking know!) and it's pleasant, even though they chopped the rockin' intro. "Heart Of The Sunrise" follows; not the best conversion to orchestra here. Makes me pine for "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" a couple tracks up.

"Soon" is here, too, but without Jon, it just sounds like a shadow of what it was. And to end things out is an embarassing take on "Starship Trooper", MINUS the "Disillusion" section. What were the boys thinking when they did this? Now, if I were producing this, I woulda had the FULL "Close To The Edge", kept "Roundabout", put it "Time And A Word", perhaps "To Be Over", and definitely "And You and I". But I wouldn't have butchered classics like "Heart of the Sunrise" or "Starship Trooper", you can bet your right testicle (or ovary) on that. In short, pass it up unless you find it for 8 bucks (or less) like I did. Next, please.

OVERALL RATING: 5

AN EVENING OF YES MUSIC PLUS (1994)

released by Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe

(reviewed by John Sieber)

God, why do they have to start out their live albums with recorded classical music? To prove to the audience that they are good? Please. They don't need that to prove their worth. I mean, listen to 'em! Anyway, once you get past the orchestral intro, you have a kickass Yes live album! Er... Wait!!! This isn't Yes! But, it might as well be; 4/5 of the creative epicenter of the great 70's Yes is represented in this ABWH show of epic proportions (no pun intended). Another long live album, this thing gives Yesshows a run for its' money! To start off the show, Jon Anderson, acoustic guitar in tow, performs a rather "poppy" set of numbers ("Time And A Word/Owner Of A Lonely Heart/Teakbois") in a rather unlikely medley, but it works pretty well anyway. This being the first time I'd ever heard "Teakbois", I will say, it's a friggin' catchy song! "Bop tread and the cool runnin'..."

Whoo! Nice way to start out, boys. Then we get Howe performing "The Clap" AND "Mood for a Day"! I'm in heaven. Following that is a Wakeman wankfest. Ha! They start with the same letter! I am the shit. Well, it taint too bad, I'll tell ya. Me, I'd rather hear Emerson on the studio version of "Take a Pebble", but ths is adequate ehough. "Long Distance Runaround" follows, building from just the keys into the full band effort, and finally dissolving into a Bruford drum solo. God I'm beginning to hate drum solos (I mean, aside from Palmer's solo in "Tocatta"). "Birthright" follows; not bad, but you can tell that the creative forces in the band felt the influence of 80's music. Good melody, though. Hey - it's an Anderson melody! But it's still "Yes" enough to be good. A faithful and amazing rendition of "And You and I" follows. One complaint I have, though, are those background synths they use in that guitar intro (and the middle solo too). Really kills the mood, ya know?

"Starship Trooper" closes out disc 1, and boy does it kick all kinds of ass all over the place. "Wurm" rocks harder than ever, kinda like "Free Bird", but holy shit is it ever better than that Skynyrd tripe. Howe and Wakeman solos dominate, and... shit, it's amazing. It really makes the opening cut of disc 2, "Close To The Edge", pale in comparison. I'm sorry, it IS possibly my favorite song ever, but I don't like it live. The same problem exists for the Yessongs and Keys To Ascension versions of it, too. But, if you can't get enough "Edge", then hey, more power to you.

"Themes", another ABWH cut, despite a catchy verse melody, reeks of 80's overtones. That said, it still ain't THAT bad! I swear, these guys could cover Limp Bizkit and actually make 'em sound good! Same goes for "Brother Of Mine", sappy 80's production, decent musical ideas. "Heart Of The Sunrise" is next, a spirited runthrough of a Yes tune that's really growing on me lately. "Order Of The Universe", the last of the ABWH cuts, sounds WAY too much like the "Top Gun" anthem to ever deserve respect from me. Thankfully, they decided to end on a good note, that note being E, the final chord of "Roundabout", which rocks, as usual. Well, I can already tell from listening to the ABWH cuts on here, that I probably won't be a rabid fan of their album (when I inevitably get it), but hey, the classic Yes stuff on here really does make the purchase worthwhile for all Yesheads, young or old. And hey, the "new" stuff ain't all that bad anyway! To quote Mr. Mark Prindle, "Buy it, you frig!"

OVERALL RATING: 8

TALK (1994)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Endless Dream, Real Love, I Am Waiting, The Calling. LOW POINTS: None.

What a comeback! This is the best album they've done since Drama, if not Going For The One. Many people call Talk underrated, but I disagree. Most Yes fans who are open to albums that came after Going For The One love this album, and only a few close-minded fans consider it to be a truly awful album. What does it matter, though? This album RULES. Hell, I'd even put this album ahead of Tales From Topographic Oceans. I don't really know about the history around this release, but it seems that after Union the band just got together and said, "It's time for us to stop putting out shit, let's release some good music for a change!" And my did it work out nicely!

At first I wasn't too excited about getting this album since it was a nineties Yes album, and I had always thought that the only good 90s Yes album was The Ladder, just as the only good 80s Yes album was Drama. By the end of "The Calling" I realized that I was wrong. I mean, they should have put out something like this in '73 instead of Tales and I would have been happy to award this album a ten. But enough of this babbling about the ratings and these comparisons to Tales, let's get to some songs.

The rocking "The Calling" opens things up, with such a fantastic chorus to sing along to. Better than that is the following "I Am Waiting," built around a simple and beautiful melody, and some nice singing from Anderson. And even better than that is the well over eight minute "Real Love." It's a truly driving number, justifying it's length and leaving you wanting even more than you get. "State Of Play" took me a little while to get used to since it has some odd vocals and such. I gave it some time and eventually found that this is just another great entry into this near-classic album. Following is the wonderfully catchy chorus in "Walls," before the great beauty of "Where Will You Be" takes over. It has a pleasant and peaceful mood to it, done very well to make an excellent song.

The closing fifteen minute epic "Endless Dream" is yet another classic, and the finest moment on the album. It starts out with this really fast piano line before a huge SLAM of a guitar chord crashes down. Then the song molds itself into a masterpiece, and never gets boring. There's so much to love about it that I won't go into it too deeply and spoil it for those who will eventually hear it, but as far as Yes epics go this one is on par with any from the seventies, and is even better than "Awaken" from Going For The One. I might even go so far and say that it's better than any of the four Tales ("The Revealing Science Of God" is the only thing keeping me from saying "might" instead of "would"). You might think I'm crazy, but the song has such great epic power that I just can't ignore. What a masterpiece.

So why just a 9 and not a 10? I don't really know. This album probably deserves a complete ten, and as I said before that's what it would have gotten if this was the band's 1973 release instead of Tales (dammit, that's four references to Tales in one review. I swear there won't be another!). Don't be surprised if I raise the score someday, since this album is just so amazing. As Howe said it isn't truly and completely Yes, and that's mostly due to Trevor Rabin. If Howe was playing (and Offord was producing) on this album instead of Rabin, then it would be perfect. But a near-perfect album, something the band hasn't put out for fourteen years is something you should have.

OVERALL RATING: 9

HIGH POINTS: I Am Waiting, Walls, Endless Dream. LOW POINTS: State Of Play.

After the catastrophic results of Union, the eight piece lineup inevitably didn't survive for a second straight record, so Yes returns to the lineup of 90125 here, with Trevor Rabin taking more control of the songwriting than ever before, as he handles a lot of the lead vocal duties, all the guitar work and most of the keyboards (relegating Tony Kaye to Hammond organ), and through major stretches, Jon Anderson is often just an occasional vocalist. Chris Squire's bass work is almost totally buried in the mix, and Alan White's drumming is mostly standard. Production-wise, the record doesn't differ all that much from the last one, and the arrangements here are a bit iffy to say the least. But with that being said, this is a huge improvement over Onion, mostly because Talk melodically seems to be modeled after the material on that album that actually worked, such as "Lift Me Up".

It's also no coincidence that a great amount of the most successful songs in the Yes pop era come when the fabulous vocal harmonies are the prominent feature, and the opener "The Calling" really shines through in that respect, and the truly awesome massive harmonies are greatly helped by its' fabulously catchy and energetic chorus (great, not overdone jam in there too, with a neat steel guitar solo). "Walls" is even more fantastic - it's a completely normal arena pop song, but it's so incredibly addictive in its' fun singalong melody, brilliantly full-sounding harmonies and booming production that I can never get enough of it. It's almost the best song on the album, but the ballad "I Am Waiting" just edges it out, as it features one of the most breathtakingly gorgeous guitar parts in the Yes catalog and a powerful uplifting mood to it - despite its' really awful and inappropriate bridge ('it happened in the water...'), it's more than made up for in Anderson's vocals and the completely beautiful romantic melody.

Unfortunately, the crappy arrangements and overproduction hurt three of the other tracks a bit - "Real Love" has an interesting, mysterious symphonic aura about it, and would probably sound rather good at 5 minutes, especially since the chorus is rather interesting, but endlessly repeating the same couple of only decent melodies over and over again for about 3 or 4 minutes too long drags things down. Likewise, the nice lullaby "Where Will You Be" has an attractive hypnotizing atmosphere, but at 6 minutes it gets way too repetitive and boring - cut in half it would probably be a wonderfully soothing diversion. The uptempo "State Of Play", meanwhile, is severely marred by a really obnoxious and stiff 90's-styled dance rhythm that gets combined with generic metal riffs in the verses, and that pretty much kills the song for me - not even the pretty, anthemic chorus can save it.

As for the 15 minute closer "Endless Dream", a lot of people would argue with me, but I think this venture works a lot better than their last such extended epic from 1977, "Awaken", did. The great fast piano introduction and appropriate powerful guitar chord gets the song on a fine momentum, and though it's a lot more pop than prog, some of the melodies here (most notably the 'talk, talk.. listening...' bit) are extremely moving and pretty, and the three part piece maintains good balance between heavy and light flow throughout. Even the 'synth vomit' section doesn't really bother me too much. In all, this is a very good album (almost an 8 in fact) that I get the sense could have been something great with better production and arrangements. I must confess, though, I can't really understand the Tales comparisons or anything like that - despite the track lengths, these are almost commercialized pop songs, not intimidating overblown 20 minute epics.

OVERALL RATING: 7.5

After the Union debacle, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, and Bill Bruford all went their own ways, Jon Anderson rejojned Yes, and the 90125/Big Generator lineup was resusitated for the third and final time (fourth if you count Union, but that's debatable). This time the album is a close collaboration between Anderson and Trevor Rabin, so what you get is a lot of loud, sparking production, very catchy numbers, all spiked with a progressive approach and atmosphere. A lot of people disliked the results of this. I, on the other hand, consider it to be the finest modern Yes release. And it's out of print, too, which is a shame, as it puts records like Union and Big Generator to shame.

The band actually seems concerned with writing songs here instead of noodling or appealing to eighties audiences (no more corporate rock), and it shows, as the band sounds tight and focused, and this doesn't show up any better than on the opener, "The Calling". Crystal clear riffs, dynamic production, and TONS of hooks just keep the track chugging along. It might be the single catchiest thing that Yes ever recorded. And Jon still sounds as great as he ever did. The other tracks mostly don't fall short of this standard - the ballad "I Am Waiting" is gorgeous, with lots of very nice vocals and sections, "Real Love" chugs along menacingly for 8 minutes, completely deserving of its running time, and "Endless Dream"... well, this one splits people. A 16 minute track (the first Yes had attempted since Going For The One), this one aims for a complete mixture of catchy pop and complex prog, and if I may say so, it succeeds. The main melody is very nice, and the little "diversions" that pop up are all quite nice as well. It noodles a little bit too much in a couple of places, but on the whole, I've got no complaints. Yet another winner from the Yes canon.

The album does have a few problems, though. First of all, a couple of songs in the middle are a bit hindered by the production, namely "Where Will You Be", which has a GORGEOUS melody, but the arrangement is just terrible. I've heard it sounded much better live, so you better bet that I'm trying to track down a bootleg featuring a live version of this song. And a couple of other songs, like "State Of Play", while not bad or anything, are kind of indistinguished. Still, this is a fantastic record, not quite worthy of a 9, but worthy of about as high an 8 as I can give. Give it a try!

OVERALL RATING: 8

COMMENTS

[email protected] (John McFerrin)

I still have mixed feelings for this one. The thing is, I positively adore these songs in a live setting, as on the Endless Dream bootleg. But even now, when I've heard them so many times on ED, I still have trouble listening to this album. Seriously, except for The Calling and Walls, I never would have guessed that these songs would turn out to have any potential to be this enjoyable.

I also still have issues with the 'commercialized' sections of I Am Waiting (egads, that "it happend in the water" bit sucks ass) and Endless Dream (Trevor! Trevor! What were you thinking with those stupid noises??!! You could have filled that space with riffing, why did you fill it with crap??!!)

I give it a 7/10 overall, but it still makes me uncomfortable in a lot of ways.

KEYS TO ASCENSION (1996)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: America, Starship Trooper, Onward. LOW POINTS: That That Is.

With the commercial success that Yes had once enjoyed with "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" and 90125 now a distant memory with Talk's miserable sales (though at least that album has recently been reissued, correcting its' former 'unjustly out-of-print' status), Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye left. Discovering a lot of fans (gasp) weren't really all that happy with the poppier, more commercial sound they had taken in recent years, somehow Anderson, Squire and White got Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe back into the lineup in a desperate attempt to get back to their 'progressive' roots, subsequently playing a few 'comeback' shows in San Luis Obispo, California, a lengthy set consisting of older classics, and a few lesser known gems thrown in for good measure ("Onward", "Time And A Word"). Not surprisingly, the performances went over really well, and they also recorded several new songs in the studio as well. This here double album, along with its' companion Keys To Ascension 2, is the result of the Yes 'rebirth'. But the question is, was it a successful one??

As far as the live stuff goes, I would definitely say so. Maybe the performances aren't on the same level of Yessongs, as they can be a bit too restrained and unenergetic at times, especially in Howe's guitar work (hey, what else do you expect from 50 year olds?), but considering that, there's really a lot to like here. Not just in the mainstays like "Siberian Khatru" and "Roundabout" that need no introduction, but also some surprises - like "Onward"! Rick Wakeman's gorgeous piano intro and more 'beauty' to the mood makes it arguably even better than the original! And their 10 minute cover of Simon And Garfunkel's "America" is simply brilliant in a similar way that they reinvented stuff like "Every Little Thing" and "No Opportunity Necessary" in their early years, with immaculate stretches of jamming, a typically great introductory buildup, and an entirely different Yes vibe to things, all of which build on, not distract the listener from, the classic melody the original song had in the first place.

Elsewhere, apparently they were in the mood for some epics, as we get a beautiful rendition of "The Revealing Science Of God" that works just as effectively, maybe even more so, on stage as on does in its' peaceful studio counterpart, and "Starship Trooper" will never cease to stop ruling, especially the extended "Wurm" jam - not even a slight awkwardness present running through the first couple parts or Wakeman's cheesier keyboard tones can bring it down at all. And then there's umm... "Awaken", which I always hope I'll come to my senses on every time I hear the first few minutes, and indeed, the good parts here are done just as well as before (and in a bit of an extended fashion, thankfully), but that damn harp/organ section still nearly puts me in a coma, and not even actually seeing this song done live helps.

Apart from "Awaken" (which still has good moments), the live material is excellent enough to warrant a strong 8 by itself. Unfortunately, this is not all we get - for some reason, Yes felt it necessary to attempt studio tracks in the same vein as well, the nearly 10 minute "Be The One" and the 19 minute "That, That Is". I guess hardcore fans might get an orgasm over these, but I think 'prog' in this case means 'generic pop songs which are stretched out by unnecessarily repeating their melodies and filling the structures out with occasionally good but often non-descript overplaying'. Admittedly, the former song does have a certain gorgeousness in its' chiming, anthemic main melody (and a good tension in 'the system began...' counterpoint melody) - cut it down to about 5 or 6 minutes and you might have a minor classic worthy of the albums where they actually did this song type really well (The Ladder and Magnification).

This isn't the case with "That, That Is", though, a major factor in nearly dragging the album down to a 7.5. I will say that this 'epic' does have some good moments (and at 19 minutes, it better damn well have them) - the introductory buildup with the choir-type keyboard parts and acoustic guitar is lovely, and occasionally, they hit upon a good energetic groove and/or some worthwhile bits in the jamming, but many of the actual vocal melodies are among the stupidest you can find on a Yes album, made even worse by terribly lame 'social commentary' lyrics (about the last thing Jon Anderson should be writing), and it just repeats whatever few themes it has ad nauseum. How can anyone like this song and at the same time dislike Open Your Eyes? What friggin' ever. In the meantime enjoy the really good live stuff on here, which did positively contribute to the band's comeback, and forget this song exists.

OVERALL RATING: 8

KEYS TO ASCENSION 2 (1997)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: Time And A Word, Turn Of The Century. LOW POINTS: None specifically, but most of the studio stuff is way too long.

A continuation of the first Keys album, with the remainder of the San Luis Obispo show filling out disc one and, unfortunately, the rest of the studio tracks filling out disc two, which means this time around they take up half the album instead of just a quarter of it, making it less recommended than the first volume. If you ask me, mixing the studio tracks with the really good live stuff on here is simply one of the most misguided moves Yes ever made in their career - though the studio songs on both albums combined on one disc would make for one of their weakest albums ever (ahead of only Union and Tormato), putting them alongside far superior live classics only serves to showcase how much more uninspired these new creations are. It's also one of the main reasons Rick Wakeman left again - he felt the studio material deserved its' own separate album, and I definitely side with him on this issue. A really lame marketing gimmick here, though it certainly worked on a lot of fans. Sigh.

Again, though, the live disc is real good, even if contains more of the predictable choices, like "I've Seen All Good People Get Overplayed To Death On Classic Rock Radio", which is a little awkwardly done but still good. Plus, with the powers of "Close To The Edge", "And You And I" and "Siberian Khatru" from Keys 1 combined, we now have a third complete version of Close To The Edge! Those songs still rule, though (get the album NOW if you don't have it), even if "Edge" is a little too slowed down for my taste. A slightly shortened version of "Going For The One" is still mightily entertaining, "Turn Of The Century" is still too orgasmic for words (in fact, I'm not even sure if I don't actually prefer it to the original - it's done just as beautifully!) and "Time And A Word" gets the same gorgeous piano intro treatment that "Onward" did and thus improves it (plus there's no orchestra getting in the way). Nice to see the band still hasn't forgotten that truly great gem from early on in their history.

Now as for the rest of the Keysstudio tracks (a recent compilation which is the only place these should have been put in the first place), this is where things get really really frustrating. Really, every one of these songs on here have cool bits in them, but they're so incredibly lacking in ideas considering how long they go on for. The 18 minute epic "Mind Drive" might be a lot better than "That, That Is" - the introductory buildup is honestly one of the best stretches of music in modern Yes history, with a nice blend of atmospheric keys, acoustic guitar, a memorable and fun, if simplistic, bass-driven riff, and a quite pretty 'in the eyes of child...' acoustic section - but once you've heard the first 7 or 8 minutes of it, you've heard it all. It just repeats the same themes and melodies, never building on them, and parts of the jam sections sound like a second-rate copy of the post 'I Get Up I Get Down' "Close To The Edge" Wakeman solo.

Elsewhere, "Footprints" and "Bring Me To The Power" follow up in the same vein as "Be The One" in that they're potentially very good normal length pop songs stretched out unreasonably (9 and 7 minutes) by repeating the same ideas and adding some nice but unspectacular jamming. A shame, since the former song's melodies do a good job alternating between an upbeat gospel-ish mood and a more tense, epic one, and the latter, while often a little boring and stupid-sounding, does have a couple fun pop hooks. "Children Of Light" doesn't have that repetitiveness problem necessarily, though probably more than any other song, it reminds me of how much better and more developed they'd get doing the same stuff on The Ladder. The piano-tinged main body of the song (with interesting if a bit preachy political lyrics) are perfectly pleasant, but the second half 'atmospheric' part just seems added on for no good reason.

If you're keeping score at home, I'd rate all the studio tracks combined a very high 5 or maybe low 6 if I'm feeling generous. Except for a large part of "That, That Is", they aren't bad, and the melodies most are based on are good, but so much unnecessary repetitveness and a 'weaker parody of classic Yes' vibe drags them down considerably. Basically, the nice mainly guitar-led instrumental "Sign Language" is the only one of all of them that doesn't need editing, as it's short and to the point, even if it doesn't stand up to Howe's past acoustic triumphs. Of course, since this time we've got nearly half studio tunes, I'm gonna have to drag the rating down to a 7. There's still the great if more standard live half, though, which makes it worth owning, and we can thank their 'prog revival' experiments for paving the way for greater triumphs. Not on the next one, though, one of the most controversial Yes albums out there....

OVERALL RATING: 7

OPEN YOUR EYES (1997)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Open Your Eyes, New State Of Mind, Fortune Seller, The Solution. LOW POINTS: Man In The Moon, Unversal Garden.

This is almost without a doubt the biggest love-it-or-hate-it album the band has done since Tales. Most fans either call it a solid entry into the band's catalogue, a minor masterpiece and one of the best 90s Yes albums. Or on the other hand some of the Yes fans of the world will say it's worse than Union, and you should know how much most people hated that one. I've heard it called the worst Yes album ever on more than one occasion. As for me, I'll give it a seven, and for a couple of reasons too. I certainly won't give an album this good a 3 or something, but on the other hand there is a single problem that prevents me from putting this on the same level as The Ladder.

First, though, the reason I'd give it such a high grade as 7 is because on the first listen this album is almost completely great. Other than "Man In The Moon" (a very very dumb song), and "Universal Garden" (which becomes so dull that it seems twice as long as it really is, dragging on for what seems like forever) you have a bunch of fantastic songs. "New State Of Mind" and the title track open with great force and power, while "Fortune Seller" has some interesting lyrics like the opening line "Fortune seller, finder seeker, finder taker wisdom keeper" and others like that through the song. There's some true beauty in "From The Balcony," and also some more great rocking in "The Solution," but not a drop of prog anywhere to be found. The non-prog Yes style comes out much better on here than 90125, with many great songs.

The problem is that even with so many excellent songs Open Your Eyes gets very tiring after a few listens. The songs lose energy and soon they all feel like "Universal Garden," dull and overlong. For example "Wonderlove," which once could be an exciting listen for me, now just seems to go on and on, not really knowing when it should end. For this reason I can't listen to Open Your Eyes more than once every few months or so, until I've almost completely forgotten it. So that's the reason I give it a very low 7. It has a short but very exciting life.

OVERALL RATING: 7

HIGH POINTS: Open Your Eyes, New State Of Mind, No Way We Can Lose. LOW POINTS: Man In The Moon, From The Balcony.

In the wake of Rick Wakeman leaving the band for the third time due to disputes around the time of the Keys live albums, the lineup of Anderson, Howe, Squire and White, along with Billy Sherwood on guitar, keyboards and, unfortunately, vocals, came together for the release of this, one of the most controversial albums in their catalog. Some call it the absolute lowpoint of Yes' career, and it certainly has its' obvious flaws which make this understandable. For one, the playing of the musicians has never been more simplistic or dull on a Yes album (Howe seems to be the laziest in particular), even by the pop standards. Those albums at least had their share of memorable instrumental melodies and musically exciting and involving moments which are usually non-existent here, and for a band that built their reputation on jaw-droppingly complex stuff like "Sound Chaser" and "Perpetual Change", this is quite disappointing.

Thankfully, though, there is one valuable area of the band which may be at a huge highpoint here, and this ultimately saves the album - the exceptional vocal melodies or harmonies. Despite a backing singer who really has no ability to do so (Billy Sherwood) and the ages of the members at that time, they still manage to inspire here, giving songs like the opening "New State Of Mind" (which boast extremely catchy melodic bursts over symphonic backing), the simply exceptional Eastern-tinged pop of the title track, which has one of the catchiest and most life-affirming choruses you'll ever hear from this band, and even a powerfully infectious reggae number in "No Way We Can Lose" for those of you who didn't think the band could succeed in that department after "Saving My Heart".

While I can't really say much about the actual music aspects of several of the other tracks, the pure singalong hooks are undeniably there, each one with pure synthesis of harmony, melody, and energy. For instance, "Fortune Seller" has an amusing little harmonic burst at the beginning, "Wonderlove" is charming Jon Anderson-filed pop, "Love Shine" has ugly backing vocals but is saved by its' incredibly catchy and fun verses, and "The Solution" has a fine hook at the end that serves as a great note to close the album on ('giving in! giving out! do the best you can do!')

This album isn't without its' share of weak songs, though - "Man In The Moon" features the weak link Sherwood's vocals emphasized most, which only hurts a really stupid song premise (an idiotic chorus here too), while the extremely lazy and corny acoustic ballad "From The Balcony" (one of the most colorless Yes songs ever) and "Somehow, Someday" are quite dull softer tunes that don't really make any sort of impression (though the first effort in this field, "Universal Garden", has a beautiful majesty to it even if not a great song). Just like Talk, the album is a bit too long and could have used a little editing, and it's also musically uninspired, but still, even though Open Your Eyes is only a minor success, there's no real reason to spit on it like it's the worst Yes album ever or something.

OVERALL RATING: 7

THE LADDER (1999)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Homeworld (The Ladder), It Will Be A Good Day (The River), Nine Voices, Face To Face. LOW POINTS: The Messenger, Finally.

A step in the right direction. Better than Open Your Eyes, maybe it was because it was a more progressive step, or maybe things just worked out a little bit better this time. For the first time since Union we have a great album cover, and that's something to get excited about before you even listen to the album itself. Again it's an album that not too many people can agree on. I think the last Yes album most fans could agree on was Union, and everyone was agreeing that it was a bunch of crap. Here at least more people agree on it being good than they did for the last album. I'll call it the best since Talk, which wasn't all that long ago anyway, so that's not saying too much. It took me a while to appreciate it fully, but I love this album now, and while it's certainly not perfect it is a great album.

The first side is wonderful, almost perfect. To kick off the album is the nine minute epic "Homeworld" which rocks out for the first seven minutes or so, and then breaks into a coda which John McFerrin doesn't like a whole lot, but the All Music Guide calls the best part of the song. I think it's very nice, although a little bit of an obvious attempt at another "Soon" sort of thing, finishing off a rocking song with a gentle closing, and just the way that "Soon" is neither better nor worse than the rest of "The Gates Of Delirium," the coda here is no better nor worse than the rest of "Homeworld." Onto the second track, "It Will Be A Good Day (The River)." This song actually reminds me of "I Am Waiting" from Talk with the simple melody repeated many times with a calmer sort of mood. It's just as good as "I Am Waiting," in my opinion.

Then it's "Lightning Strikes," which people often say the classic Yes fan will hate, but for me it was the first song on the album that I truly liked. It's fast and energetic, and contains the line "Swimming in this ocean of words on your new cell phone" which shows just how much the band has changed since "In charge of who is there in charge of me." But then it's almost a tribute to the old days with a neat variation of "We Have Heaven" called "Can I?" which only falls behind the original because it is shorter, and doesn't feel quite as complete as "We Have Heaven" did. Then it's off to "Face To Face" which has a chorus that's been in my head all day long. To me it feels like a combination of the earlier album entries "Homeworld" and "Lightning Strikes," but I have no idea whether or not you will hear the combination there too. To close out the side is "If Only You Knew" which is a poppier, more contemporary song that still manages to be quite nice, even if not anywhere near as beautiful as "It Will Be A Good Day."

The second side just can't dream of living up to that. Not that it's less than good, but it has "Finally" and "The Messenger" on it, which to be honest I don't like a whole lot. Not too much of a reason. They just seen a little to dry to me, and drag the album down a tad. Luckily we also have the epic "New Language" and a pair of greats called "To Be Alive" and, the best on the second side, "Nine Voices," which serves as a perfect closing to the album. The first half is so much better than the second, but the second is still good too, and when you put them together to form the complete album you're left with a minor masterpiece from late 90s Yes.

OVERALL RATING: 8

HIGH POINTS: Homeworld, Lightning Strikes, Face To Face, To Be Alive. LOW POINTS: None.

Since the early 80's, Yes had pretty much abandoned progressive rock in favor of a much more pop-oriented sound, which of course, led to many hardcore fans dismissing much of what they wrote since then, except for maybe a couple longform pieces in during the 90's such "Endless Dream" and "Mind Drive" that very noticeable traces of their old style in them, even if the songs at their core were still very much rooted in pop. The Ladder, however, is probably the single most effective Yes album of actually combining their most creative ideas in the pop format with whatever artsy ambitions they still had left. And even more noticeably, the musicianship on this album is stronger than it has been in years, especially in the triumphant return of Chris Squire's bass work (which had been very noticeably absent for awhile). With the mix of consistently solid melodies and interesting approaches to these songs, I can say this is easily the best work they've come up with since Relayer 25 years before. So yeah, it's a heck of a comeback.

It gets off to a really powerful start, too, with probably the ultimate album highlight in the opening "Homeworld". It's almost reminiscent of Drama's "Machine Messiah" in how it moves from several different sections effortlessly during its' lengthy structure (9-1/2 minutes). It starts off with almost funky opening verses that contain a great engaging melody, then turns into a soaring, majestic anthem made to be played loud. It's irresistibly singable, and it even contains Rick Wakeman-esque keyboard playing that recalls Fragile and Close To The Edge. The only minor problem with the song is its' transition to the acoustic portion towards the end (which seems like an abrupt regression), but that's quickly made up for in the piano ballad ending that brings a beautiful closure to the epic.

The other tracks on side one are almost as great (well, other than the rather pointless minute and a half "We Have Heaven" remake "Can I?"). "Lightning Strikes" has to be one of the most fun songs in the entire Yes catalog as a mixture of uptempo acoustic guitar and quite danceable, pounding almost reggae rhythms, with an extremely infectious melody, and the fast-paced bass work and great chiming guitar parts of "Face To Face" really help push forward a very outstanding, electronic-tinged(!) pop tune. The mellower ballads "It Will Be A Good Day" and "If Only You Knew" also have very strong melodic bases and pleasant vocals - the former has a really pretty guitar line and reflective mood to it (with an uplifting 'making me free again...' refrain) and the latter is an emotionally moving ballad that Jon Anderson dedicates to his wife, and it succeeds despite having an undoubtedly adult contemporary feeling.

The second half, while less impressive, continues the enjoyable momentum. The Eastern-tinged "To Be Alive" has an extremely catchy pop hook, and it's 'everybody wants some...' chorus is charming rather than stupid like some might say. There's also the superior rewrite of "Loveshine" from the last album in "Finally", another catchy and entertaining singalong that moves into mellower territory at the end with ease, though it sounds slightly anticlimactic. and the awesome bass groove Squire sets up in "The Messenger" builds into another power anthem with nice harmonic verses.

The closing ballad "Nine Voices" features another good tender melody and acoustic playing (plus fine chorus harmonies), so that leaves the other 9 minute track "New Languages", which has a fine (if slightly awkward, especially in the organ) extended intro, though it's somewhat too repetitive and not as striking as the rest of the songs to nearly justify its' length. In all, though, this is really an impressive album that the band should be proud of this late in their career - they may have started atrociously with Union at the beginning of the 90's, but by the end of the decade, they've regained their footing, which has culminated in their pop masterpiece, and a great album for the time period.

OVERALL RATING: 8.5

Yes, after years of problems and lineup and sound changes, seem to have finally settled down with The Ladder. Jon, Steve, Chris, and Alan are still in the band, along with a couple of disposable keyboard players, and it doesn't look like the core 4 here are going anywhere for a while (though this is Yes we're talking about, so you never know). And what sound did this band choose for itself? Progressive adult pop! Sound like a contradiction? It kinda is. But that's the only way I can describe a bunch of these songs. All of the songs here are, at their core, adult contemporary pop songs. But they're all instrumented complexly and most have several different sections and a progressive element or two. If the band had ever wanted to completely fuse mainstream pop and prog, this is the closest they ever came to doing it.

The important question, though, is "What are the results?"... well, they're kinda mixed, actually. The new style best demonstrates itself on the two 9 minute tracks, "Homeworld" and "New Language", both of which are lengthy, complex, catchy, and quite pretty. Jon still sounds like he always did, and the band members all put their unique personality into the tunes, making them work splendidly. "Lightning Strikes" is another good example... Chris Squire plays some inhuman bass runs against a goofy, happy horn-laced melody with a 7/4 time signature... quite an unusual arrangement, believe me. It's really catchy, though.

The rest of the songs... well, all of them are good - there isn't a bad song on here - but none of them really deliver any knockout power. "Pleasant" is the word I'm looking for - they all sound good while they're playing, but you don't really need them very much. I probably should mention some individual tunes, but I won't. Just know that all the songs are pretty decent, but nothing more. Have fun with them. This album's worth getting. Maybe next time out they'll deliver a few more excellent songs to pack a better punch. But as it is, this is a promising album that could point to some great years ahead for the band.

OVERALL RATING: 7

[email protected] (John McFerrin)

COMMENTS

[in response to the first review:]

Actually, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here. I have no problems with the coda itself, as it's quite pretty. It's the BRIDGE that makes me fidget - to suddenly go from this swirling miasma of musical ideas to dull acoustic strumming KILLS me every time.

But it's still a good album.

HOUSE OF YES - LIVE FROM THE HOUSE OF BLUES (2000)

(Robert Grazer's review)

HIGH POINTS: Yours Is No Disgrace, Homeworld, It Will Be A Good Day (The River), And You And I. LOW POINTS: The Messenger, Awaken, Owner of A Lonely Heart

An excellent live Yes album, a high 7, but still nothing more than that because there are quite a few problems here. Each disc has one bad pick, and one that easily could have been left off and they still would have had a complete double album. I know they wanted to include a lot from The Ladder, but "The Messenger" on disc one is just as bad as it was before. And we get "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" on disc two, and no, I still don't like that one. Apart from the actual bad choices we get a bad performance or two. "Awaken" should never have left the studio. In a live setting the song is nothing more than dull, dragging on and on. On the other hand "Roundabout" is all cut up with the single edit version, and ends with a cute but somewhat corny blues jam. I really don't think we needed that.

The highlights? Pretty much everything else. "Cinema" is wonderful, and so is our good old "I've Seen All Good People" (which is just named by the parts "Your Move/I've Seen All Good People"). Other than "The Messenger" the material from The Ladder is excellent, like an incredible "It Will Be a Good Day (The River)" and a "Homeworld" that may even be better than the original. The other two Ladder tracks included are "Lightning Strikes" and "Face To Face," two more of my favorites from the album, so if only we had "Nine Voices" I would be oh so happy, but what we have here now is good.

Even better is the older material on the first disc. Both "And You And I" and "Perpetual Change" are incredible, just a tad less great than the original studio versions, and finally we get the "Ritual" we've been waiting for. It's under a minute long! It's cute, though, and cutting twenty minutes out of a song is interesting idea for a band that tends to add five or ten minutes to live songs. The best however is the opening "Yours Is No Disgrace" which not only completely blows away the original (which says something right there), it might even be the best live Yes song ever (and I'm not forgetting the Yessongs version of "Starship Trooper" when I say this). I'm serious about that. It is that great, and by itself worth the double the price of this album. So get it.

OVERALL RATING: 7

Wow, another live Yes album. What is this, their fiftieth? Anyhoo, this is a nearly complete show (minus "Close To The Edge" and "Hearts") that Yes played at the House Of Blues on their tour in support of The Ladder. So, what you basically have here is 5 tracks from that album, plus a bunch of Yes standards. You know, I'm really having trouble finding stuff to say about this album... what can you say about it? Most of these songs have been released in live versions before. So I guess I'll talk about the one's that haven't, like the Ladder tunes. Well, "Homeworld", "Lightning Strikes", "The Messenger", "Face To Face", and "It Will Be A Good Day" sound exactly like the studio tunes. Exactly. Maybe a change or two, but basically the same. I'm not really gonna complain, because the songs are all good, but if you have The Ladder, who needs 'em? The other 2 are rocking versions of "Cinema" and "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" from 90125. "Cinema" sounds pretty much like the studio version, but "Owner" really rocks hard here - WAY harder than the original. Billy Sherwood's loud, hyper-distorted guitar riffs give the song more urgency, and in my opinion, improve the song. Awesome, dude.

As for the rest? You get rocking, awesome versions of "Yours Is No Disgrace" and "Perpetual Change", a decent run through of "Awaken", "I've Seen All Good People" and "Roundabout" make their obligatory appearances, yadda yadda yadda. And they all sound awesome - the sound quality here is just fantastic - though they don't differ from earlier versions much (except for some awesome guitar parts in "Yours Is No Disgrace"). And you get one-minute piano-and-vocals versions of "Ritual" and "Time And A Word" as space filler. Yee-ha. I know it seems odd to give an 8 to an album that I seem so apathetic towards, but the fact remains, as unnecessary as this record is, the songs are all really good, and the performances are tight, so the record sounds great throughout. It's just hard to work up much excitement in a seasoned Yes fan like myself. If you've never heard the band, though, this might be a good way to give them a try. Just a thought.

OVERALL RATING: 8

MAGNIFICATION (2001)

(reviewed by Nick Karn)

HIGH POINTS: Magnification, Give Love Each Day, Spirit Of Survival. LOW POINTS: We Agree.

After the mostly great progressive pop of The Ladder, apparently the core lineup (Anderson, Squire, Howe, White) decided they would embark on a short tour with a full orchestra (which, by practically all accounts, was a huge success). This wasn't exactly an idea confined to a live setting though - for the first time since Time And A Word, the band decided to use the full orchestral setup on their upcoming studio album, and in the process, move a bit more into the artsier territory of before. The result? Well, the material on Magnification can't exactly qualify as progressive, as this is unsurprisingly a very mellow affair, even more so than usual. However, I take this aspect of the sound as a positive - whatever it might lack in energy, it makes up for in brains. The band, and Howe in particular, seems to realize here that they can no longer be as complex and flashy as they were in their early-mid 70's classic period, and they don't try.

What they do strive for is to emphasize creativity over complexity, and in that aspect, they're very successful. And best of all, unlike their previous attempt, the orchestral arrangements actually work in the studio. Sure, they do border on unnecessary at a few points, like that excessive tacked on wanking at the end of the otherwise really interesting "Dreamtime" (which really evokes a 'running through the clouds' feeling, has great guitar work and a really fun fast melody that appears throughout), but its' arrangement to "Give Love Each Day" is something really well thought out (particularly on the intro and verses). The orchestra seamlessly adds such beauty to the music in a very special manner, and helps contribute to making a gorgeous latter day Yes ballad a classic. Despite its' dippy title, the song has a really moving melody and sweep to it, and the climactic chorus and ending coda are positively transcendent.

That number is probably a close second to yet another fantastic album opener as the best song here, the title track. The overall arrangement here is incredible, shifting tempos in a great, subtle way while the orchestra works its' magic. It has a gorgeous, harmony-filled verse/chorus bridge, a classic powerful refrain, and the epic feeling of it is helped immensely by an exciting, memorable vocal melody. And it even has a banjo hidden in the mix during its' awesome instrumental breaks - a very clever addition to the tune. And speaking of clever, "Spirit Of Survival" is actually driven by what sounds like a spy riff(!) and it actually brings a lighthearted edge to the already seriously entertaining tempo and melody of it. Gotta love the uptempo chorus chant as well.

Nothing else on the album really matches those three great songs, but it actually stays fairly consistent during its' hour long running time. Even the shorter, less than 3 minute numbers on here work in this context. The best of these is undoubtedly the gorgeous piano pop tune "Can You Imagine" - this one actually features Chris Squire singing lead for the first time, and the very pretty melody and refrain really suits the orchestra backing here (plus Jon sounds great doing backing vocals!). The closing "Time Is Time" does a decent job in ending the album on a more laidback note, with attractive slide guitar playing, and "Soft As A Dove" starts out as a really bleh rewrite of the crappy "From The Balcony", but it's salvaged by an interesting Renaissance flavored middle - and it's very short, so it probably won't bug you too much.

Of course, the album as a whole isn't exactly perfect, or even quite as good as The Ladder. Besides the sometimes overly mellow sound, there's also the disappointingly empty "We Agree" (there's something really rambling and uninteresting about both the playing and the arrangement here) and the bizarre choice for a lead single "Don't Go", which is a good Open Your Eyes styled tune, though it's a little bit too fruity, and that megaphone bridge just bugs me. Plus I always have trouble remembering how portions of the final epic "In The Presence Of" go, even if the actual flow of the song is very relaxing and works well (particularly the opening piano part and the ending coda 'Turn Around And Remember'). Nevertheless, despite these minor flaws, this is another surprisingly excellent and imaginative addition to the late period Yes catalog, and it successfully continues their creative momentum.

OVERALL RATING: 8