Something Completely Different

The first serious thread ported over from MB. This one will be big, and possible controversial.
(https://i.postimg.cc/SspCmB7Z/image-2023-01-02-185929631.png)

Yes or No? Tales from Trollographic Oceans
Trollheart Dives Deep into the Entire Yes Discography,
Looking for Wondrous Stories and the Owner of a Lonely Heart

One thing that always seems to shock people when they hear I'm a proghead is the fact that I don't particularly care for Yes. That's not quite true of course: anything from the 1980s onwards I do like, but go backwards and there's very little there I'm interested in. It might help those people to realise that I got into music of my own (as opposed to music I could only hear on the radio or through my elder sister's record player or from friends) in around 1980, when I began working and was able to afford my first stereo system. I had heard of Yes, vaguely, but only really came to know them through the hit single "Owner of a Lonely Heart", which played on MTV with a cool video. Even then, meh, I wasn't too bothered about checking out their album, not until my mate Tony played me Big Generator, their twelfth album, and second produced by The Buggles' Trevor Horn. I loved that album, and quickly got into its predecessor 90125, from which the single I mention had come, then tried Drama but didn't think much of it. Tony suggested the one two albums prior to that, 1977's Going for the One, and while yes (no pun intended: this will of course happen a lot) I was impressed by "Wondrous Stories", I just didn't get the album.

So I've been a forward-looking minor fan of Yes, loving those two albums and then the follow-ups, including the all-but-Yes-in-name Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe album, though after the disappointment of The Ladder I stopped listening to their new stuff. I've heard a few tracks in playlists from the later albums; some are good, some are poor. None have really made me want to go and check out the full album. I've also been aware of Jon Anderson, mostly through his association with the late Vangelis, of whom I was a big fan in the late 1970s and 1980s, and the two hit singles they had together, but I heard one of Anderson's solo albums and again I just was underwhelmed.

But I've never really come across a band, particularly a prog rock one, particularly one of THE prog rock ones, which has so sharply divided my opinion along the basis of time periods. Peter Gabriel Genesis or Phil Collins? Like both. Pre or post-Fish Marillion? Love both. Emerson, Lake and Palmer? Hate them. There hasn't been, that I can recall anyway, a band or artist who I've found I love a certain period of their work and don't like the rest. Yes remain as a sort of anachronism in my appreciation of prog, and indeed music. Usually, I either like an artist or I don't, and I can't think of another where I can answer the question "Do you like Yes?" with both answers, having to qualify that answer by asking one of my own: "Do you mean pre or post 1983?"

But it's always been a slight concern to me that I haven't been seen to have given 1970s Yes a proper chance. So, while I am under no illusions this will suddenly make me a fan of early Yes, my intention here is to, if not get into them, at least lay out my reasons and thinking behind my dislike of everything before 90125. At the end of this project, I hope to at least be able to say, with some confidence, that I have tried, have listened to the early stuff, and still don't like it, and if someone does greet me with that air of incredulity, and ask how I can like, say, Union and not Tormato, I will, with some degree of sanguinity, be able to point them to this article for the answers they seek. Or, you know, just tell them to fuck off.

The intention here is, then, to listen to every album in Yes's discography (even the ones I'm familiar with), including any bonus tracks, special mixes, and so forth, and possibly solo efforts too, to do a detailed and descriptive review of each, pointing out its failings in my view, or, if I can, its strengths, and trying to find out and/or explain why a certain album does or does not resonate with me. Comment is invited yadda yaddda see the small print for details, your statutory rights don't exist etc.

One more thing: if you're going to argue with me about this or that album, and try to convince me I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about (I don't) then fuck you. While I'll engage in civilised debate with anyone on any subject, I expect the same sort of courtesy towards my views, and anyone who says something flippant like "You just don't get it" can eat a big one. This is, primarily, a sort of testament to my dislike of seventies Yes, and why I feel like I do. I want to give the albums a fair chance, and I will, but if, as I assume will be the case, I still don't like them then that's it. Don't try to tell me I need to listen to each album 40,309 times, cos I won't be doing that. Remember, I'm not necessarily trying to get into seventies Yes here, just explain and demonstrate why I'm not into that period of their work. So to paraphrase Lord Edmund in Blackadder II, play fair with me and you will find me a considerate reviewer, but if you cross me by Jove! You will find that beneath this playful, boyish exterior beats the heart of a ruthless, sadistic maniac!

And with that, let's go.

As we all know (or if you don't you should) Yes began when one guy met another in a pub, literally. Chris Squire had been playing bass in a band called "Mabel Greer's Toyshop" (doesn't quite have the same ring through, does it? Close to the Edge by Mabel Greer's Toyshop!) but after leaving that band to their obscure destiny he joined up with barman Jon Anderson, and names were bandied around as they tried to come up with a good one for their new band, suggestions ranging from World to Life. The incredibly simple word for the affirmative was settled upon and with Squire leaving behind childish things, as it were, and the addition of guitarist Peter Banks, drummer Bill Bruford and keyboard player Tony Kaye, Yes were born, and took the world by storm.

Um. Not quite. It would take two albums and a lot of touring before Yes began making their name in the nascent progressive rock scene, even as later godfathers of prog Genesis and ELP were both finding their feet, and Andy Latimer was looking for somewhere to water his Camel. It's fair to say that the first two albums from Yes were not exactly going to shift the units, but there are indications on them of the band they would come to be. So let's have a listen.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/37/Yes_-_Yes.jpg)
Album title: Yes
Year: 1969
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals, some percussion), Chris Squire (bass), Tony Kaye (Organ, piano), Bill Bruford (Drums, vibraphone), Peter Banks (Guitars)
Track by track:

"Beyond and Before"
Right off this sounds more like a psychedelic rock/hippy shit song with a heavy guitar and some close-harmony vocals, the latter of which would become the trademark of the band. Anderson's voice is not as strong or confident here as it would grow to be, of course, but it's relatively strong even so. Definitely too guitar-driven for me, though the lyric is pure what would become prog rock, with a lot of pastoral stuff about nature, lines like "Sparkling trees of silver foam/Cast shadows soft in winter home/Swaying branches breaking wind, sorry sound/ Lonely forest trembling ground" showing the sort of thing we could expect from this band, lyric wise, though as Jon Anderson would take over most of the songwriting duties and this is not one of his, being written by Chris Squire and Clive Bailey, one of the previous members of Mabel Greer's Toyshop (was it an MGT song, or one meant for them? Don't know) we have yet to hear what Anderson will contribute in terms of songwriting to this album.



"I See You"
While you can understand that a band only getting together and then releasing their debut album a few months later would be necessarily short of material, I don't like the inclusion of cover versions, and here we have one of The Byrds' songs, which for me roots Yes even more in the sixties, even as they're approaching the seventies, and perhaps shows a slight lack of confidence in themselves that they had to have a cover on there. I don't have a lot to say about it, as there's really no point. It's a cover. That's it. I guess it's a vehicle for Banks to show off on the guitar, but not much more than that.


"Yesterday and Today"
The first song on the album written by Anderson, and indeed the first one written solo by any member of the band, though I read "Sweetness" was the first collaboration between he and Squire. It's much shorter, in fact the shortest on the album at just under three minutes, a nice little acoustic sort of ballad with guitar and piano, with Bruford playing the vibraphone, adding a nice touch. To be perfectly  honest, it's nothing special and yet it stands out as far better than the first two tracks, at least for me. Maybe it's because Anderson gets to exercise his pipes without the others joining in - no harmony vocals here; this is a one-man job other than the chorus where the harmonies come in.

Let's be honest though: the lyric is pretty poor - "Standing in the sea/Sing songs for me/Smiling happily" - oh dear. Still, our Jon will of course do much better, and anyway this is his first attempt at songwriting. Well, maybe not, but his first on the album.


"Looking Around"
Kicks the tempo back up with a big blast of bubbly organ from Kaye, the second song in which Anderson has a hand, this time co-writing with Squire. The keyboard riff does sound a little similar to Genesis's "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" outro, making me wonder if Tony Banks was listening to this album before recording Foxtrot three years later? There are also elements of "Watcher of the Skies" in the Hammond riff halfway through.

Again, the lyric leaves a lot to be desired: "Songs that I can't hear/Would take me for a while my smile/ Fares that are too dear/I'd rather walk out another mile." Right.


"Harold Land"
The first to get three songwriting contributions, as Bruford joins Squire and Anderson. This is the first one where we hear the trademark bouncing keyboard arpeggios that would characterise much of Yes's music, and it's also the first where they tackle a serious subject, that of men going to war and what it does to them. Was this a response to the Vietnam war? I don't know; it's written more as a World War I sort of thing, leading men in charges and such, but they may have been slightly jumping on the bandwagon of protest songs that were emerging at this time. I suppose in that sense it's the first song on the album you could call dark or even serious.

It's also the first that has what I could call a proper lyric, with the airy-fairy nature/love stuff pushed aside for the band to perhaps make a serious statement and show what they were about. Or not. Anyway it's a heavier track with a kind of sense of sophomore Supertramp about it, quite organ-driven with some nice vocal harmonies. I like the lines written about Harold after he comes back from the war: "Stood sadly on the stage/Clutching red ribbons from a badge/But he didn't look his age." A really good organ solo in the outro that would surface two decades later on the Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe album in the closing arpeggio to "Brother of Mine".


"Every Little Thing"
Sadly, a second cover version, and by a rather obvious band to cover in 1969, the Beatles. I don't know the song, but that kind of doesn't matter, because where there are cover versions I'm just going to gloss over them. Musicianship is undeniable and I suppose how you cover a song is important in one way, but not to my appreciation of Yes, or the lack of it.


"Sweetness"
The first song written by Anderson and Squire, and in terms of track listing, the fourth song on which Anderson has a writing credit. Lovely keyboard intro, reminiscent of Procol Harum, with some reflective guitar and sighing harmonies. Lovely. Another ballad, but I would say better than "Yesterday and Today", and was in fact the first single released from the album; not surprising to see why. Very relaxing. Kind of nods a little towards The Byrds again, though it's an original. It's a pretty simple little love song, but if you think there's something wrong with that, talk to Paul McCartney. He has his own views on silly love songs.


"Survival"
Anderson keeps his fingerprints all over the album as he writes the closer, and it's heavily drenched in Kaye's trumpeting keyboard arpeggios, which fade out then to be replaced by Banks' beautiful, laid-back acoustic guitars then it and the returning organ complement Anderson's voice really well in what appears to be another ballad. Again the lyric is pretty laughable - "Mother flew too late/And life within the egg was left to fate" - do what, mate? But you can forgive that due to the dreamy nature of the music and Anderson's angelic voice. In this mode, he could sing your shopping list and you'd be entranced.
 

Bonus Tracks[/u]
(Only on 2003 remaster)

"Everydays"
A Stephen Stills song. Good organ opening, sort of a sense of drama about it but you know, it's a cover.


"Dear Father"
The only one of the bonus tracks which is an original song, written by Anderson and Squire, and forming their third collaboration on the album, it kicks off with a big punchy keyboard run then slips down into an almost VDGG style with the organ low in the background and the vocal quite low-key too until the chorus when it bursts up into life. Another heavy song, I wouldn't be mad about it to be honest.

"Something's Coming"
Seems to me completely pointless to do a cover version of a song from West Side Story, but then Waits covered "Somewhere" on Blue Valentines, so what do I know? Nothing to say about it though.
 

Note: on the 2003 remaster there are several versions of each of these songs, but I'm only taking one, because, you know, why bother? Two of them are covers anyway.


Comments: As a first album this isn't bad, but it's by no means a juggernaut that was destined to set Yes at the top of the prog tree. Truth to tell, prog was only really getting going around now, and it would still take the band a while to get established, both as an actual accepted rock band and as a later titan of the scene. For me, this album is massively, massively flawed. It has, for a start, too many covers. Two on an eight-track album is too many. There really shouldn't even be one. Who can judge you properly if they're not listening to your own music? Secondly, the lyrics really need work. I mean, I'm a (sort of) writer but no lyricist, so who am I to say, but some of the rhymes, the imagery, the expressions just make me cover my mouth and snigger. Of course, as time went on the lyrics became much better, much deeper, much more well-written, but here I feel they are barely acceptable.

There's very little to single this out or identify it as a prog rock album - even Wiki calls it "proto-prog", and I would probably agree with that. Yes may have been laying down some of the foundations of what would become progressive rock, but they don't contribute very much to the movement here. I'd even venture to say, much as I dislike them even more, ELP had more to add to the scene on their debut, released the following year. There are half-formed ideas here, but to me this band doesn't at this point know what they want to be, or where they're going. There's no real direction on this album and it comes across as a mixture of styles, influences and themes. Not something which would be said about Yes after they found their metier of course, but here I think it's fair to accuse them of being somewhat confused.

Not a terrible debut, but other bands have done better even at this point in time. Genesis's debut was pretty poor in terms of being a progressive rock record, but was better, I feel, than this, and I don't even like From Genesis to Revelation, and Supertramp's self-titled debut, released the following year, is a far superior album. And of course, in the same year as this makes its debut you have the stone-cold classic from King Crimson, which does more for the emergent progressive rock genre with In the Court of the Crimson King's opening lines than Yes do in the whole of this album.
Rating: 3/10
Yes or No? Definite No.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlEX8Iye46o

So only their second album and Yes are already courting controversy. They say no press is bad, so the "scandal" over their intention to use the original album cover, showing a naked woman and upsetting the delicate flowers over in the USA, would have at least been good publicity for them. The spat with Peter Banks over the usage of the orchestra, on the other hand, would not. When Jon Anderson decided the guitar and bass parts weren't enough for the sound he wanted to create, and instead brought in a small orchestra composed of music students (probably got them cheap, maybe even free) Banks walked. He realised his guitar parts would be at best subsumed under the orchestral sounds, at worst not needed at all. Wasn't it Peter Gabriel who would describe his orchestral work, Scratch My Back (or was it New Blood? One of them anyway) forty years later as "freedom from the tyranny of the guitar"?

So Banks knew, without having to be told, that he would not feature really on this album, and though he played on it he left midway through the tour, which led the band to recruit Steve Howe, who would end up being an integral part of Yes until the 1980s, when he would leave to set up the supergroup Asia, and then return to Yes on staggered occasions over the next three decades. Give his guitar work on the following albums, you would probably say the band got the better deal when Banks left, but even so, it sort of comes across as a hissy fit, as it wasn't as if they were going full orchestra for the rest of their career. Yes did use an orchestra again, but only once, and it would be another forty years before this would happen. So Banks could have sulked, played, toured and then been part of what was quickly going to become a legendary and wildly successful band. Instead, he took his ball and went home. Ah well. What might have been, eh, Peter? The things we do in anger, and have all our lives to regret.

But bollocks to him. Let's check out the second Yes album, the last one on which he worked and the one on which Yes did something which I don't think anyone had done before in the emerging progressive rock arena, and which gave them their first chart placing.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f3/Yes_-_Time_and_a_Word_-_UK_front_cover.jpg)
Album title: Time and a Word
Year: 1970
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals, some percussion), Chris Squire (bass), Tony Kaye (Organ, piano), Bill Bruford (Drums, vibraphone), Peter Banks (Guitars)

Track by track:
"No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed"

At least it kicks off with a big meaty Hammond run, but then for reasons I've never been able to divine they put in the riff from Jerome Moross's superb western The Big Country. It's a cover, too. I mean, come on! I know I went on about covers on the other album, and I still don't like the idea, especially when a band is trying to get themselves established. Well I guess I can't blame Yes for the composition of this song, but damn does it annoy me. That theme is one of my favourites - used to have it as a ringtone - and to hear it used in such a pointless way pisses me off. Anyway other than that the song is pretty decent organ-led rockout material, and certainly closer to what would become prog rock than nearly anything off the first album. And what in the name of blue jumping fuck does the title mean, eh?


"Then"

The first of three written solo by Anderson (the other two co-written with David Foster - that one? No, don't think so) it's a decent kind of psychedelic tune with some fine noodling on the organ by Kaye, and I do have to be honest here, I don't hear any orchestra. I mean, they were on the first track, sure, but I don't hear them here. Don't, to be fair, hear a lot of Banks' guitar either; mostly it's very much organ-driven with Kaye front and centre, especially for the extended instrumental parts. Okay I heard a little brass there, but it's hardly an orchestra now is it?

The reflective part in the last minute or so is nice, Squire gets to soothe us with a lovely hypnotic bass line and Anderson sings like a choir boy, everything else dropping away. Nice idea in the lyric: "Love is the only answer/Hate is the root of cancer."


"Everydays"

Okay well I can definitely hear the orchestra now, but this is a song we've already covered as part of the bonus tracks on the 2003 re-release of the debut, so other than the atmosphere the strings and such set up within the song, not much else to say really. Oh and I clearly hear Banks going wild on the guitar solo here, so what his problem was I don't know, but again, you know.


"Sweet Dreams"
And there he is, leading the line before Kaye comes thumping in with the organ. This is the first of the Anderson/Foster collaborations, and I must say it does sound good. I miss the close vocal harmonies though - there's one now, so not lost entirely. But scarcer than they were on the debut for sure. Once more, don't really hear any contribution by this orchestra as such. Certainly not taking over the track or anything. Have to wonder if Banks was just being a big girl about this whole situation, and if he was precipitous in leaving?


"The Prophet"
The Keyboard intro is really powerful here, and Banks gets to strut his stuff too. A long intro, about two and a half minutes, the theme of this song would be revisited in a slightly different manner by Genesis on their 1976 album Wind and Wuthering on the track "One for the Vine". The orchestra comes through clearly here, and it definitely adds something to the melody.
 

"Clear Days"
This I guess is the ballad, a simple love song that perhaps presages Anderson's later hit with Vangelis, "So Long Ago, So Clear". Or maybe not. Nice song though. A great opportunity for the orchestra to shine.


"Astral Traveller"
This is all right but there's just something about it that I can't put my finger on. Oh yeah: I'm bored with it. The keyboard solo in the midsection is pretty fine, but the rest of it can take a flying leap. It's also too long.


"Time and a Word"
Nice little acoustic guitar intro with some bubbly organ and the harder percussion from Bruford works very well here. See I can follow the melody here, whereas on "Astral Traveller" I was, perhaps appropriately, lost. This is pretty catchy, and a good closer too.



Bonus Tracks[/u]

Nothing that hasn't been already reviewed, or else special mixes of songs already here. Meh. Not doing those.

Comments: I think I very much prefer this album to the previous one. It seems more together, the songwriting is better, and despite the annoying covers, it works better. I really don't get all the fuss about using the orchestra; I mean, you can certainly hear it throughout most - but not all - of the album, but I don't think Banks had anything much to worry about. It doesn't overshadow or drown out or make superfluous the guitar parts. If anything, they're almost more pronounced here than they were on the debut. I can also see how this album managed to make it into the charts (just) and could be seen as more of a marker along the path to their career than the first one could. The first real glimmers of brilliance here I think.

Rating: 7/10
Yes or No? Yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYiWlnXppb0

The slow, trudging return of Trollheart continues...
Nobody seemed much interested in this the last time I posted, so here's your chance to ignore it all over again as we continue with the many and varied reasons why I just don't "get" this band.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a5/The_Yes_Album.png)
Album title: The Yes Album
Year: 1971
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals, some percussion), Chris Squire (bass, vocals), Tony Kaye (Organ, piano, Moog), Bill Bruford (Drums, percussion), Steve Howe (Guitars, Vachalia, Vocals)



Comments:

The album that, in another dimension or reality, was never made, as Yes could very well have ended a few months earlier. Their van was involved in a head-on collision at Basingstoke in November 1970, resulting in all of the band ending up in hospital and Tony Kaye with his leg in plaster. Could have been the end, but in fact became the beginning: Yes's third album broke the chart wide open for them, punching all the way to number four, and even scorching the Billboard Hot 100 across the water, where it scored a very respectable number 40 spot. After this, of course, the phenomenon would be unstoppable.

The first time, for me, that Yes begin to sound like a progressive rock band, and you can definitely see the legend beginning to peek out here from among all the more or less standard rock and covers that populated the first two albums. There's a sense of something great being born here, and while I question titling two albums so similarly, I can see the point in one way, that this is really the first REAL Yes album, and therefore it deserves its title. Not just A Yes album, not ANOTHER Yes album, not the third Yes album, but THE Yes album. From here, everything changes, not just for Yes, but for the entire genre of progressive rock. The first side is pure class, although nobody likes to get the Clap. Sorry, song is called "Clap" isn't it? "Crap"? No that's unfair. I think it's a pointless bit of noodling though. Sandwiched in between "Yours is No Disgrace" and "Starship Trooper" it sounds, to me, an embarrassment.

Order is soon restored though in Yes's first suite, the three-part "Starship Trooper", which interestingly runs for just about its entire length without any big keyboard solo, restraint on the part of Tony Kaye, or was it just that there was no place for arpeggios and glissandos when the other three wrote it? He's there, for sure, but mostly with a sort of organ backing. Wonder if he felt left out? Future classics continue with the acapella intro to "I've Seen All Good People", another suite, this time in two parts, a joint Anderson/Squire venture, again with each writing one part. The opening part, "Your Move", sort of reminds me of the opening of "Brother of Mine" on the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe album ten years later. Not too surprisingly, it's a vocalfest for Anderson and the first part is slow and measured, with kind of minimal instrumentation for much of it, before Kaye's organ comes blasting in, and there are some flutes in there too I think.

"All Good People" then kicks out the stays in a sort of boppy uptempo rocker with plenty of guitar, again I'd have to say poor old Tony is being brushed aside a little here; definitely the Chris Squire and Steve Howe show. In fact this theory is supported, that not taking part in most of the writing there is no real role for his keys; not that they're not there, but they're not upfront and there are no keyboard solos, the only one being on the opener on which, you guessed it, he has a writing credit. Anderson writes "A Venture" solo, the only track on the album where he writes the whole thing, but it's short and to be perfectly honest a little throwaway for my money. Reminds me more of some sixties band like the Kinks or someone, maybe very early Floyd or even CSNY. Meh. At least Kaye gets to break out his pianner and does a fine job, otherwise I could live without this.

We end then on another epic, nearly nine minutes of "Perpetual Change", again quite guitar-centric with a big solo from Howe at the start, and once again we're looking at the vocalist and the bassman as co-songwriters, so Tony can just stay there in the background I imagine. After the initial blast of guitar it settles down to a soft, pastoral-ish almost ballad, more guitar which then morphs into another heavy solo as Howe certainly makes no bones about showing the fans he is the man - Banks is gone, forget him: there's a new sheriff in town. And he takes no prisoners. Okay well I was wrong: Kaye definitely finally gets given his head here as he blasts out a superb solo in the sixth minute, Howe still trying to edge in over him.

Rating: 8 /10
Yes or No? Yes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y6oPS4aLk8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y6oPS4aLk8)

Okay then, next one is the big one! Word to the wise: soaking the rags in kerosene helps the torches keep burning longer. Nothing worse than being the one person in the angry crowd whose damned torch flickers out!  See ya then!

The Yes album is my second favorite... well, Yes album. I love every minute of the thing. And you better believe if I'm at Guitar Center testing a keyboard and I happen upon a distorted organ patch the first thing I'm playing is the riff from Yours Is No Disgrace.

I feel we may be falling out over the next one. Or at least, let's say our friendship may be, um, close to the edge...?
:shycouch:

Quote from: Trollheart on Oct 05, 2023, 04:17 PMI feel we may be falling out over the next one. Or at least, let's say our friendship may be, um, close to the edge...?
:shycouch:

I think it'll be fine. And you and I have had our disagreements in the past and our friendship is still intact. So don't sweat it!

Oh, it's funny when you make the same mistake twice in six months!  :laughing:
So, once again...
Well I'll be buggered! I thought it was next, but it isn't! This is.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/Fragile_%28Yes_album%29_cover_art.jpg)
Album title: Fragile
Year: 1971
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Rick Wakeman (Grand piano, Hammond, Mellotron, Minimoog), Bill Bruford (Drums, percussion), Steve Howe (Guitars)


Comments: Ha ha! I'm gonna live! Live, I tells ya! I'm gonna live another day. Another pointless, empty, useless... well, I'm gonna live. I thought Close to the Edge was next, and have already set my affairs in order, but it seems I have a reprieve. Not sure how I made that mistake, but then, as I'd be the first to admit, I'm no expert on this band. This, then, was their fourth album and their first to feature long-time member Rick Wakeman, who replaced Tony Kaye after the keysman did a Peter Banks, but with electronic keyboards instead of orchestras, shaking his head and wondering what was wrong with an organ or a good old piano as he departed, the rest of the band waving goodbye and shouting "See ya in the charts, grandad" possibly.

Again Steve Howe is stamping his identity on the album from the off, but it's not long before Wakeman is elbowing him to one side and saying "That wuss Kaye wouldn't play electronic keyboards? They're the future, man!" and showing just what he can do, which immediately, to my mind anyway, gives this album a more keys-centric presence than any of the previous two. "Roundabout" is more prog too, a nice uptempo song with plenty of arpeggios and a catchy beat, which ended up making it one of Yes's best-known songs. The guitar riff here would later be used by Howe on the debut Asia album, in the song "Time and Time Again", and I hear less vocal harmonies here initially, though they do some in there around the midpoint. Shades of "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" here too.

Wakeman then has his first solo composition, a short instrumental which allows him to indulge his love of classical music, based as it is on a Brahms melody, though to be honest and fair it's not really that great is it? Sounds sort of like something you'd hear in a church at a wedding maybe. Comes across as really indulgent, but then, that would be one of the accusations levelled at Yes, and other prog bands, and the accusers would not be wrong. Another short one in an Anderson-solo-penned song, "We Have Heaven" which has a very annoying rapidly-repeating line in it and doesn't do anything for me at all I'm afraid, but at least it's short enough to be over before I have to say "Shut the fuck up Jon!" And we're into "Southside of the Sky", which seems to display that bugbear for me with this band: I just can't get my head interested in it and it seems to just ramble on and on without any real structure I can see. Oh wait: stopping now with a nice slow piano melody. That's something.

Some close-harmony singing now which does help to put more of a shape on the song, as the piano keeps the melody, though it's getting harder and more insistent now, but then the vocals fade out and it's just Wakeman and a sort of classical piano line, then wind effects and it's like a reprise of the opening minutes, which sort of bookends the track, for me, with two poor sections and allows it to finish badly. It's kind of Howe's somewhat histrionic playing that ruins it for me, just as I was beginning to like it. Would have been better leaving Wakeman in control. Then we get another pointless piece of showoffery from Squire on "Five Percent for Nothing", which to me is just nonsense, the next three all short and written respectively by Anderson, Squire and Howe solo, so you know what to expect. Anderson's is "Long Distance Runaround" and is a bouncy little ditty with a sort of staggered melody line, while the crazily-named "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)" is of course a vehicle for Squire to wank all over his bass, and wanker supreme Steve Howe gets "Mood for a Day", unsurprisingly demonstrating his skill on the guitar.

We finally get to grips with a proper track on the longest, ten minutes plus of "Heart of the Sunrise", a big powerful instrumental intro which takes us into the third minute before Anderson's vocal comes in very low and quiet, and I guess for a ten-minute track it goes in pretty quickly, though again much of it passes me by. I always felt that Yes, to me, made more about creating instrumental sections without making any memorable melodies. Probably just me, but very little from this album has stuck with me, and I include your precious "Roundabout" in that. I simply could not sing one of the tracks here if my life depended on it. To me, this is more an album of people - undeniably talented musicians, but that doesn't excuse or justify it - showing how clever and talented they are, without too much regard for actual songs.

This album was the first whose cover was designed by Roger Dean, who would become as synonymous with Yes as Derek Riggs was with Iron Maiden or Mark Wilkinson with Marillion. He also designed the now iconic and still used logo for the band.


Rating: 4/10
Yes or No? No

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hE7HZCVVRU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hE7HZCVVRU)

Honestly TH? I'm kinda with you in some ways on this one. I love Roundabout and Heart of the Sunrise, Long Distance Runaround is good but not essential, and the rest I could honestly take or leave.

Perhaps our friendship was not as fragile as you thought!

Quote from: Mrs. Waffles on Oct 06, 2023, 01:58 AMHonestly TH? I'm kinda with you in some ways on this one. I love Roundabout and Heart of the Sunrise, Long Distance Runaround is good but not essential, and the rest I could honestly take or leave.

Perhaps our friendship was not as fragile as you thought!

:laughing: Good one, Mrs. Waffles!

For me, this album starts and ends with two of my favourite Yes tracks: Roundabout, with its intricate, short lead-in (which takes us seamlessly from gentle acoustic guitar to full-on rocking band in about one minute), to Heart Of The Sunrise with Jon Anderson's impassioned but inexplicable vocal climax. The album sags a little in the middle, as we might expect with the individual artist showcases, but they're all good efforts imo. Mood For A Day has a sweet, but not very obvious melody, and anyone who finds We Have Heaven annoying (*ahem, Trollheart*), just needs to put on some headphones and play it louder - then you'll wish it lasted longer and didn't stop abruptly with that slamming door gimmick. 
The low-point of the album is Rick Wakeman's solo track: in an album bursting with innovative ideas, he comes up with a trite exercise in mock-classical style that screams, "I'm auditioning with this fancy keyboard, but I've got no original ideas of my own." He clearly didn't get the memo explaining that prog rock is about looking forwards, not backwards, and so his track is not just a low-point, it is jarringly out-of-step with what his bandmates were creating.

Sorry Frownland (!) generally if I don't like an album (or it doesn't impress me, not quite the same thing) jamming on headphones isn't going to make any difference. My comments here should not be surprising to anyone really; I've made no secret of the fact that I can't get into 70s Yes, and yet I love their 80s output. Tres weird, because I don't think there's any other band that affects me in that way. But WHV just annoys me with that rapid-fire line. Not saying it's not a good song (quite honestly, as per usual with me and Yes LXX, I lost interest pretty quickly) just that it does nothing for me.

I've had a few small surprises along the way so far, but mostly it's been as I expected, and I'm waiting for the triumphant emergence of 90125, Big Generator and Union to soothe my nerves.

^ :) Of course, Trollheart! I hope it was 100% clear that I was only joking.

Of course. And now for the real stuff...
(https://www.acmearchivesdirect.com/cdn/shop/products/SG24_first_400x400.jpg?v=1564098618)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/09/Yes-close.jpg)
Album title: Close to the Edge
Year: 1972
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Rick Wakeman (Organ, piano, Hammond, Mellotron, MiniMoog, Harpsichord), Bill Bruford (Drums, percussion), Steve Howe (Guitars, Electric sitar, Steel guitar)


Note: Again in deference to its fans, I'm going to try to approach this album and write as if I had never heard it before. So I won't be saying "as happened the last time" and so on; although I have certainly heard it, I will attempt, as best I can, to forget all that and really try to come at it fresh. I doubt it will make any difference but hey, I'll give it a go. Can't say fairer than that.

Comments: It might seem odd, as a prog head, for me to say this but one of the fundamental reasons I find it hard to get into this album is the paucity of tracks, and the length of them. We're talking three in all, and while I like my prog epics, for me, not enough happens in the longer tracks to make them worthy of being that length. Not only that: they're both cut up into four sections, but not measured, so there's no way, that I can see, to differentiate between the separate, as it were, movements, so I have to take each as a full and complete piece of music. The title track comes in slowly and in a sort of ambient way, then bursts into a flurry of guitar from Howe and some pretty powerful drumming from Bruford, shimmering keys from Wakeman as everyone gets in on the act, Anderson letting loose a bit of vocalise in the second minute, but other than that we're talking an instrumental introduction that runs for four, settling in on a nice guitar line before Anderson comes in with the vocal proper.

Much of the melody is then based on a Hammond line with some powerful bass and guitar, with something (guitar?) making a sound that reminds me of morse code. Yeah. Good vocal harmonies, as you might expect, but as per usual I'm just not interested. Anderson is singing "I get up, I get down", which is the title of the third part, so I don't know if we're there already or whether this just runs as some sort of continuing motif through the track; I would imagine the latter as we still have more than half the track to go. Some nice funky guitar from Howe, though I would say that at the moment, for a track that runs for eighteen minutes, I don't hear enough of Wakeman here. He's coming in now with a sort of organ sound, but I feel that up to now the track has been mostly driven on Steve Howe's guitar.

Slowing down now in the ninth minute, getting quite relaxed and ambient, surely going into another long instrumental passage, a sequence there which reminds me of Peter Gabriel's later "San Jacinto", at least the closing section, now Wakeman's keys are tapping back in and Anderson's voice is low and almost muffled as he returns to the song, again crooning about getting up and also getting down. There's a nice little melody about this piece, but as usual I know for a fact if anyone asked me to sing any part of this track even a minute after it's ended I would have to shrug. It just does not appeal to me or hold my attention at all. We're now in the twelfth minute, and it is nice to hear it all slide back to a nice restrained pace and the buildup to what I assume is another burst of guitar is nice, presaged by a heavy, sonorous church organ giving the piece a very dramatic, almost sepulchral feel.

I guess you could say Wakeman is perhaps making up for lost time, or at least lost contribution here as he starts to somewhat take over the track in its latter stages, and it's good to hear, but for me this epic does not flow in the same way as, say "Supper's Ready" or "Grendel" or even "This Green and Pleasant Land" does. It seems disjointed, disconnected, and again for me this is one of the problems I have with Yes: their music never seems to follow any real sort of pattern. I know DriveYourCar noted that they are more based on a jazz ethic than a rock one, and maybe that's a point, because - newsflash! - I don't like jazz. But I think it's more than that. No matter how I TRY to like this, to see the genius in it or the lasting effect on prog rock (well I guess I can see that) or the reason why people cream their pants over it, I just can't. It's not for the want of trying, but I do have to admit that at this time I've become tired of trying, and I'm pretty much done with those efforts.

So now we're at the end of the track and I feel no different. The second track is another epic, not quite as long - only ten minutes - also broken into four sections, also impossible for me to divide them up and know what's what. "And You and I" begins on a lovely acoustic guitar passage, which immediately grabs me more than the behemoth title track that has just finished. Anderson's vocal then is pleasant, and the harmonies are as always really well done. The powerful rush of keys is really effective, a slow, stately march that has almost orchestral tones about it, Howe adding some fine flourishes of his own. Again though, good as it is - perhaps even great - I find it hard to thread any sort of path through the tune and hook it all together. It's almost like a few disparate and separate pieces of music with little resemblance to one other, rather than parts of the same suite.

Now we have what appears to be a sort of semi-country beat on the guitar as the tempo picks up a little, and we're into the seventh minute. This turns into a march of sorts, the percussion slow and measured, guitar sounding a little discordant to me, Wakeman's keys all over this, and then in the last minutes it slows down in quite an atmospheric, dramatic manner, the vocal dropping out and I think it may go full instrumental to the end. No, we have a short vocal piece to end. Okay. So that's what, twenty-eight minutes of music and I'll be honest: I could not pick out one piece of the melody I could sing afterwards. Hey, maybe it's just me.

I've never had any time for "Siberian Khatru", and I don't see that changing. A lot of you cite this as your favourite track on the album, and that's cool. You do you. In my case, if there was one track (yeah, out of three) on the album I liked least, it would have to be this. Rockier than anything that has gone before, very much guitar-driven and with the close vocal harmonies, it should probably impress me, but it doesn't. Meh. What can do you? Nothing, that's what. And that's what I'm doing: nothing. Nothing more. I'll review it briefly for the History of Prog, because I have to, but I'm done with this now. I don't get it. I probably never will.

Now, everyone fuck off and leave me alone. This is my last word on this. I do NOT want to be shown the error of my ways. I do NOT want to be convinced of how great this album is. I do NOT want to be told I need to listen to it 100 times before I can "get" it.
I.
am
done.

Thank you, and goodnight.

Rating: 8/10 (I'll give it its due: it is a great and classic album) but
Yes or No? No

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNkWac-Nm0A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNkWac-Nm0A)

I think your review was perfectly fair, and this is an all time top ten album for me. I can even agree with you that this is not catchy or hummable stuff, I don't think it was written with the intent to be.

I think a big part of why I like Yes so much is because they aren't making totally concise or concrete musical statements, it's all very much like the soundtrack to a dream, which is why Roger Dean's art works so well with the band's sound IMO. And You and I is my favorite part of the album, it just floors me with its beauty. I used to practice two-hand parts on the big epic Mellotron/Moog part.

Anyway, I don't think your ways are in error at all. Music isn't a linear scale of quality, everyone has different stylistic things that tickle their fancy and others that leave them cold, even within specific genres. I don't "get" probably the majority of the all-time most acclaimed albums honestly. So absolutely don't sweat it.

I have the first two for completeness and they sound great, yet they're far from favourites.  I listen to several hundred albums spiralled (all track 1's, then all track 2's, etc.) in a monster playlist, and I generally hear them in that context.

The Yes Album and Fragile feel to me like they're both four powerhouse songs and filler elsewhere.  I changed the title of "Clap" in my tags to "A Clop" because Jon seems to say in a very stoned manner, "eh, zong cart a clop!" and I always found it funny. 

Close to the Edge is the one that seems to be perfect.  I know we haven't gotten to Tales yet but while it remains the absolute fave, I think it's a grand example of the unspoken edict that seems to exist among music fans that It's Not Music If It's Not An Album.  The formats available were a bit wrong.  If that album had been a double but they didn't feel the need to fill each side with 20 minutes of music it might have been a major coup. 

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/Tales_from_Topographic_Oceans_%28Yes_album%29.jpg)
Album title: Tales from Topographic Oceans
Year: 1974
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Rick Wakeman (Keyboards), Alan White (Drums, percussion), Steve Howe (Guitars, electric sitar, lute (!))

Comments: Well this just looks perfect, doesn't it? After one epic track on the previous album, we have FOUR on this. And they're the only four tracks on it. Arty-farty spiritual mystic lyrics, no track less than twenty minutes, oh and it's a double album! Great. Even the title screams prog pretension to me, and shows how those who hated prog would certainly target this band later as one of the dinosaurs of rock music, and blame much of the perceived indulgence, arrogance and overblown complacency of prog on them. And not without cause, I feel. It's one thing to have four almost side-long tracks - well, they are side-long, aren't they: only four tracks and a double album, which back in 1974 meant two records, four sides - but to have the lyrics so, well, unconventional and abstract is, I think, as the man says, pushing it.

Apparently the entire thing is based on the writings of some swami or yogi or winne the pooh or something, which doesn't make it sound like it's going to be a) of any interest to me or b) understandable. Reminds me of that joke I once saw, where this guy climbs to the top of a mountain where there's a holy man sitting and he asks him "O Great One, tell me: what is the secret to eternal life?" The holy man thinks - probably in a holy way - for a moment before smiling benignly and replying "Refrain from dying." Says it all, really.

 I don't expect to have much but contempt for this, but we'll see. The reviews mention words like "inaccessible", "overblown", "indulgent" - some of which I've used above - so it doesn't look like it's going to be a happy one hour, twenty-one minutes and fourteen seconds for me! But it starts out okay, with the first track, the pretentiously-titled (maybe it's the name of the book, I don't know, but man is it prog rock seventies excess to the max!) "The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)" a reasonably restrained piece, mostly driven on guitar but mainly the vocal from Jon Anderson. Sounds like some Mellotron here, though none is mentioned. Interesting to see the drummer is gone, not that I have to say it makes any difference to me, no offence to drummers but I just can't tell one from the other. Seems Bruford left in something of a huff?

You know, that one is not so bad. I mean, it wanders a bit but not so much as to really get on my tits, and it's a nice little melody with a sort of chanting vocal and some fine keyboard arpeggios at the end, so not the mess I had expected, not quite. I suppose though I would still have to say it's not anything I'd remember, or do remember, after the track is over. I don't hear any hooks, there's nothing there to grab my attention; just a pleasant piece of mostly faceless music. Track two is "The Remembering (High the Memory)" (um, what? Sounds like someone was indeed high) and has another good vocal harmony line with again Howe's guitar pretty much leading things. Slower at least at first, but of course this is twenty minutes long so I don't expect it to remain that way. There is certainly a sense of joy and innocence about this one, I can hear the organ coming in a little more here, a certain sense of the medieval in it at times. Gets a little spacey and atmospheric then, kind of a nascent Jarre or Tomita sound, some fine bass work from Squire too.

I begin to wonder if I can't pin down the dislike I have for seventies Yes to their lyrics. By and large, they're pretty esoteric and someone said Anderson chose the words for their sound rather than their meaning, which ends up giving little meaning to the lyrics, and if the music is wandering all over the place and I can't understand the lyric, what's left? I prefer a basic narrative lyric, something that either tells a story or at least something you can follow, which is probably why I'm more a Genesis/Rush guy than a Yes one. But even on their eighties stuff some of the lyrical material is a little hard to follow; nevertheless, I can sing it, or at best I can follow the thread of the melody through the music, which mostly here, and on previous albums, I can't. So maybe that's at the root of why I can't really get into this music. Or not. I don't know. But it certainly does not help.

The music on this one approaches the ambient at times, quite relaxing and stately, but again not really following any pattern, at least none I can keep up with. At the midpoint it speeds up on Howe's guitar, then slows back down again into some nice synthscapes which remind me of Genesis around this time, though perhaps Anderson's lyric from "Close to the Edge" fits the pattern best here: "I get up, I get down". You certainly do. I can't keep track of this at all and it doesn't seem to have any real sort of structure, something I've said before about Yes. The next track, the shortest at only (!) eighteen minutes and change, "The Ancients (Giants Under the Sun)" seems pretty avant-garde in its way - lot of effects, odd sounds, a squealing guitar underlining how Howe (sorry) will not be left off any of these tracks and will take over if he can. Settles down then into a nice ambient piece, but not for long: Howe's off battering at the guitar again, trying to force the melody into a harder groove, and you kind of almost get the impression of a battle going on between him and Wakeman, with the latter muttering "Fuck off and leave me to meander along here, willya Steve?" In fact, the keysman would depart after this album, unhappy with his contribution and how it turned out.

Yeah, there's some choir going on and Howe has burst out with the guitar, but it's all to me a case of style over substance, again, something I find with a lot of this early Yes material. I want something I'm going to remember, maybe something I'm going to be able to hum. Hell, I can sing passages from "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" and I know "Supper's Ready" backwards, I know a lot of "2112" and I can sing other prog epics fine, but don't ask me to even remember what the first track on this was like as we go through the third. There's some sort of battle emerging between Squire and Howe now, but I really don't care. It's, again, technical wankery to me with nothing really behind it. Yawn. Wake me up when it's over. Or before you go-go. Either is good.

I read that a listening session was set up to introduce the album in a record store, and by the time it was halfway through most of the audience had fucked off. Shows how hard it is to maintain the interest; there's just so little to grab onto. It is, again, very much a vehicle for the band members to show how great and talented and clever they are, but the problem is that it's almost more like someone tuning a guitar and showing how well they know it, then someone says play a song and they can't. Not saying Yes can't play of course, but the idea seems to be more that they do clever things with their instruments (including Anderson's voice - words for their sound rather than their meaning indeed!) rather than actually make music you can remember or even sing. Parts of it, yeah, but most of it just gets lost, for me, in a musical morass of ideas and themes and textures and moods, and it really does nothing for me. The acoustic-like vocal part at the end is nice, but they've already lost me at this stage.

And we're, thank Christ, on the final track. But we have another twenty minutes to go, as "Ritual (Nous Sommes de Soleil)" opens with some sort of chant and - oh look! Howe's guitar again! How surprising. Well to be fair there's a decent melody going through this and it is mostly thanks to Howe, with riffs that would surface later on the Asia albums, but the real question that has to be asked is why the fuck did this have to be so long? I mean, a twenty-minute track is not, and perhaps was not quite then even, that big a deal, almost expected by the time prog came of age. But FOUR twenty-minute tracks? All right, one was only eighteen, shut up. And no shorter tracks to break them up? Listen to almost an hour and a half of music all at once over four tracks? Bah. Wouldn't mind doing that if the music was worth listening to, but, while in some places Yes do get it more right than they get it wrong here, mostly it's the other way around, and if I had to pick one word to describe this album it would be indulgent. Another would be pointless.

Rating: 4/10
Yes or No? No, no, a thousand times no.

Thanks for transfering this thread to SCD Trollheart: I imagine it must've taken some time to do. :thumb:

Quote from: Trollheart on Apr 09, 2024, 01:57 AMYes or No? No, no, a thousand times no.

:laughing:

Do I detect a note of disappointment running through your review, TH? It's an excellent review, and has prompted me to do two things: (i) listen to parts of the album again after a long absence, and (ii) try to defend an album that I grew to like a lot.

I say "grew to like" because this was an album that (having spent the enormous sum of £4 or so) I had to work hard at to justify the expense of: quite a few baffled listenings, feeling very much as you describe in your review. But in the end the subtle joys on three of the four sides won me over. Today I'd count those 3 sides/tracks as among my fave Yes songs. I like that they have various rather wandering interludes, but the band comes back again and again to some great, up-tempo sections.

On track one (Yes, you're right "The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)" is an embarrassingly pretentious title) there is the sing-along hook of "What happened to this song we once knew so well", which the band do not overplay; we hear it a few times, then forget it as furthur into this side we are swept up by the soaring synths during the "Getting over overhanging trees" part. But then about 10 mins later, they play just one more time the "what happened..?" line, which by now we recognise like an old friend.

Those are the things I like about this album: the control and care about the way the songs are constructed. Yes, they're long, and therefore a little demanding and the hooks are not in-your-face rockers, but musically there's plenty going on and each 20-min song has moments of unusual beauty imo.

I am more in agreement with you more about the lyrics, TH. Jon Anderson's approach of "words for the sound of them" is one thing, but on this album, it's like he only chose words from a Dictionary of Mystical Terms, and that really brings out the negatives of this album: the overblown, arrogant, pretentiousness that you mention. Syd Barratt was another writer whose lyrics make about as much sense as JA's , but Syd at least had fun with vernacular language, which of course would've deflated the high tone of JA's concept, but might've made the lyrics more accessible, or more rooted in common experience. Here's a bit a Syd for comparative purposes:-

QuoteHoney love you, honey little
Honey funny sunny morning
Love you more funny love in the skyline baby
Ice-cream 'scuse me
I seen you looking good the other evening

Good-time rocker woman we'll stray our pieces
Little creepy we shine so sleepy
So whoopee!
That's how you look

A final point: hats off to you, TH for listening to the album all the way though! I don't think I've ever managed more than one side at a time, then I take a break. If you ever feel like trying this album again, you might enjoy listening to it that way - I especially recommend giving "The Remembering: High The Memory" another go. I rate as the best side of all. In structure, it reminds me a bit of Ommadawn: you think it's slow, begin to dismiss it, then realise that your head is being blown off by all the powerful crescendos.

Couple of things: first, thanks so much for bothering to read and then comment on the thread. It's always great when someone takes an interest. Second: as for transferring the thread, well, I hope in time to transfer all my "significant" threads, including journals, but yes, it does take time (I have nightly nightmares about transferring my History of Prog Rock journal, which I will definitely have to at some point!) but I don't want them to just languish over at MB, where the tumbleweed now seem to hold sway. I've also moved the King Crimson one and my other prog-related ones, and will transfer others as I get the time: right now, as you might see if you check my Hall of Journals, I'm concentrating on moving and fully updating those, with the most recent being the WWII one, the Most Evil one and the American West one. Next up are Animation, Country Music, Classical Music and Comics I think. So a lot of work, even if I'm just transferring. NB: In case you think I just copy and paste, I don't: I read them through completely as I re-post each article, so it does take time.

Third, and more specifically, the album: well, I respect that you have good things to say about it, though it's telling that even for someone who likes it, you maintain you've only listened to it once or twice all the way through, and also that you agree it can be very wearing in places. Most reviewers appear to agree with me: as Yes albums go, this is probably the hardest to defend against those accusations later, mostly by the punk fraternity and sorority. It's massive. It's long-winded. It's hard, even impossible to understand. It's indulgent with a capital indulge. And it takes up nearly ninety minutes of your time that you'll never get back.

On my one and only listen to it, no, I heard nothing that made me think of changing my mind, and honestly, though at some point (if I get back to it) I will have to relisten to it for the History of Prog, I am not looking forward to it. Some of the Yes albums I've listened to and hated up to this I could pick out the odd track I liked. On this, nothing. To me, it's like. almost, going to see a three-hour Korean movie in black and white with no subtitles. In a Korean movie theatre. While suffering from a bad cold, and then being mugged outside the theatre. I doubt I'll ever listen to it again.

Actually, I take your point on Barrett's lyrics, which to be honest never bothered me that much. Short, snappy, humourous nonsense I can live with. Long, boring, indulgent and up itself nonsense I cannot.

But thanks for the comments, and I'll get back to this as soon as I have a chance. Good to know you're reading anyway. Can always rely on you!  :thumb:

^ No need to thank me, TH : we all owe you a debt of gratitude for the amount of reviewing etc you have done for us- which yes, means a mountain of material for you to consider shifting, I'm afraid. :(

Quote from: Trollheart on Apr 14, 2024, 07:11 PM... and more specifically, the album: well, I respect that you have good things to say about it, though it's telling that even for someone who likes it, you maintain you've only listened to it once or twice all the way through, and also that you agree it can be very wearing in places. Most reviewers appear to agree with me: as Yes albums go, this is probably the hardest to defend against those accusations later, mostly by the punk fraternity and sorority. It's massive. It's long-winded. It's hard, even impossible to understand. It's indulgent with a capital indulge. And it takes up nearly ninety minutes of your time that you'll never get back.

^ As to listening to Topographic Oceans all the way through, I've addressed that aspect of our discussion in a new thread
( https://scd.community/index.php?topic=779.msg26589#new ) and, stung by your comment about "Most reviewers agree...", I checked it out on the Progarchives website: TFTO gets a very worthy average rating of 4 out of 5 stars.

TBH, though, I am quite happy to drop the topic because every time you mention the album, your opinion of it drops even furthur down a chasm of dislike, and will finally land, I imagine, with a subdued thump on the sandy seafloor that we can see on the cover of the album itself: 

QuoteOn my one and only listen to it, no, I heard nothing that made me think of changing my mind, and honestly, though at some point (if I get back to it) I will have to relisten to it for the History of Prog, I am not looking forward to it. Some of the Yes albums I've listened to and hated up to this I could pick out the odd track I liked. On this, nothing. To me, it's like. almost, going to see a three-hour Korean movie in black and white with no subtitles. In a Korean movie theatre. While suffering from a bad cold, and then being mugged outside the theatre. I doubt I'll ever listen to it again.

^ :yikes:

QuoteActually, I take your point on Barrett's lyrics, which to be honest never bothered me that much. Short, snappy, humourous nonsense I can live with. Long, boring, indulgent and up itself nonsense I cannot.

^ Very well put, TH ! I feel the same, though I didn't realize it until you just spelled out the distinction for me. :thumb:

Yeah, I won't labour the point, but good ratings or not, when most of your exclusively-invited audience fecks off before your new album is done, the phrase "voting with your feet" comes to mind!  :D While there were positive reviews, I've done gone cherry-picked from them to suit me, and find comments such as "Wishy washy tales from the deep" and "Close to boredom" (Sounds); "Brilliant in patches, but often taking far too long to make its various points, and curiously lacking in warmth or personal expression". He thought "Ritual" brought the "first enjoyable moments" of the entire album, "where Alan's driving drums have something to grip on to and the lyrics of la la la speak volumes. But even this cannot last long and cohesion is lost once more to the gods of drab self-indulgence" (Chris Welch for Melody Maker, and he's a Yes biographer!); "a great disappointment" (NME) and Gordon Fletcher described the record as "psychedelic doodles" and thought it suffers from "over-elaboration" compared to more successful songs on Fragile and Close to the Edge. He complained about the album's length, Howe's guitar solos on "The Ancient", and the percussion section on "Ritual", but praised Wakeman for his "stellar performance" throughout and believed the keyboardist was the "most human of the group". (Rolling Stone).

Of course, there were other opinions, so I'm not saying everyone hated it, but in terms of commercial success, though it got to number 1 in the UK and 6 in the US, it never rose above the Gold status in either territories, a mere 100,000 units shifted in the UK and half a million in the States, as compared to Close to the Edge, which had poorer chart success but sold more units (over a million Stateside), Fragile, which outsold it by a factor of four in the US and three at home (though again performing more poorly chartwise in the UK) and even The Yes Album, which racked up a Platinum certification in the US, so doubling its sales there. Yes, I do love my statistics, don't I? I should maybe quit my job and become a fulltime... statistics... guy.  :)

I love Tales personally. I tend to think of it in a different way than I do most other Yes albums, more akin to more freeform or less structured forms of music than tighter, more definitively "song-based" styles. I don't always listen to it all at once, but when I'm in the mood it's very captivating.

But I also like a lot of mystical new age hippie mumbo jumbo, stuff way more in that realm than Tales is, so it's very much up my alley in that respect.

Yeah see that's where we differ. I can listen to some new age music and I do like ambient, but I always prefer something more structured; basically, something I can, if I like it, hum afterwards. I couldn't even try to hum any of TFTO!

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/92/Relayer_front_cover.jpg)
Album title: Relayer
Year: 1974
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals, acoustic guitar, piccolo, percussion), Chris Squire (bass), Patrick Moraz (Hammond organ, pianos, MiniMoog, Mellotron), Alan White (Drums, percussion), Steve Howe (Guitars, electric sitar, pedal steel)


Comments: I'm not surprised at all, but I am rather disappointed that again I'm presented with an album of three tracks. My track (hah!) record with Yes on this has not been good; any time I can handle early seventies Yes it's been on the somewhat shorter tracks, so I don't hold out a whole lot of hope for this. It's also unfortunate - though of course I knew this - that Wakeman is gone, replaced by Patrick Moraz, of whom I know nothing. I have a vague recollection of his being involved in some disco hit? Maybe that was someone else. Can't see anything about it, and now it says he was involved with the Moody Blues, so yeah, maybe I'm confusing him with someone else. Either way I'm sad to see Wakeman go, as for me, other than Anderson's distinctive vocal, his keys were what made Yes.

You have to love the cover though, which for me follows on a little from the previous behemoth. Reviews for the album seem to be mostly complimentary, whereas they had a lot of bad things to say about Tales from Topographic Oceans, so it will be interesting to see how this goes. It kicks off with the epic, and it is an epic: twenty-three minutes of "The Gates of Delirium", not even broken up into sections, so you can't call it a suite, but one long unbroken piece of music. Good thing or bad thing? Well I must say it sounds a little like the band tuning up as it opens, and it's really about two minutes before it settles down into anything cohesive, and when it does it is again on mostly Steve Howe's guitar and of course Anderson's vocals that it finds its shape. I can't say I notice much of the new guy's work yet, but there are still nearly twenty minutes to go.

Yeah. Twenty boring minutes. :( Again, the old problem. I really couldn't care about this and my attention is wandering, especially as I read about the album on Wiki. It's just not holding my interest, and now we're into a bouncing, uptempo section about halfway through, which I guess, from what I read, is the "charge" section of the piece, and there's of course some great musicianship in it, but I just can't make myself care. At least I can hear Moraz's keyboard parts now, but to be honest, for me, they're not a patch on Wakeman, who used to take over the melody when he was required to. It's kind of another long jam, as I find - probably incorrectly, but certainly to me - most of the longer Yes pieces are. Y is for Yawn.

Sixteen minutes in then and it's slowed down (aftermath of the battle?) on a humming keyboard line with some squeaky lines that could very well be on slide guitar or keys, I don't know, and I don't much care. Does remind me though of later Pink Floyd, especially on The Division Bell. Seems an age since we've heard Anderson sing, and it is. Now he comes in with the soft and soulful ending, which is nice, but there's no way this track would ever grow on me. I'm just too bored with and uninterested in it. Dare I retitle it "The Gates of Tedium"? Oh, you know I do.
I see my friends Pendragon robbed part of the closing melody, something I have accused them of doing with a few other well-known bands, including Floyd, Supertramp and Genesis. Not that you care about that.

So that's the big epic over, but Yes being Yes, the two remaining tracks can also be classed as epics, or perhaps mini-epics, over nine minutes each. To my delight (!) "Sound Chaser" turns out to be a jazz fusion jam that just sets my teeth on edge for nine minutes and twenty-five seconds, almost an abstract expression of musical ideas. You know, it's not that bad: Anderson sings like an angel as usual, and there's to me more cohesion to this at times than there was to the previous track, but it does tend to degenerate (sorry) into what sounds to my untrained ear musical chaos too often. I will give it this: it's holding my attention, which the other piece did not. I still wouldn't sing or hum it, or even remember it, but I'm not drifting away from it in boredom as I did with "The Gates of Delirium".

And that leaves us with one track, as "To Be Over" closes out the album with another nine-minuter, which has a nice relaxed feel to it, almost the calm after the storm if you will. A nice gentle instrumental intro on which I think I detect use of this electric sitar Howe is shown as playing, then the vocal is low-key and sedate. I read the song was written after experiencing a boat ride down the Serpentine River, and that certainly shows in the relaxed, almost drifting style of the music. There's one bonus track, which is "Soon", and I must say it's really nice, kind of reminds me a little of "Holy Lamb" off Big Generator. Isn't it though using parts of the closing melody from "The Gates of Delirium"?


Rating: 5/10
Yes or No? No

Quote from: Lexi Darling on Apr 16, 2024, 04:49 AMI love Tales personally. I tend to think of it in a different way than I do most other Yes albums, more akin to more freeform or less structured forms of music than tighter, more definitively "song-based" styles. I don't always listen to it all at once, but when I'm in the mood it's very captivating.

But I also like a lot of mystical new age hippie mumbo jumbo, stuff way more in that realm than Tales is, so it's very much up my alley in that respect.

^ :laughing: Perhaps you listen to TFTO the way I often do: put it on, go do something else, then get a nice surprise when the best bits force me to pay more attention to the music again.

Quote from: Trollheart on Apr 16, 2024, 06:37 PMYeah see that's where we differ. I can listen to some new age music and I do like ambient, but I always prefer something more structured; basically, something I can, if I like it, hum afterwards. I couldn't even try to hum any of TFTO!

^ Sorry to labour a point, but there are plenty of hummable bits in TFTO, but it takes a few plays to identify them.
__________________________________

At least I can agree completely with your review of Relayer, Trollheart. I really identified with your "...but I just can't make myself care". Despite all the energy, skill and complexity of Gates Of Delirium, that was exactly how I felt. I thought To Be Over was nice enough, but this album pretty much killed my interest in Yes, and caused me to abandon complex prog for something like 35 years. In that sense it was an important album for me: "never buy stuff like this again".

Quote from: Lisnaholic on Apr 17, 2024, 02:33 PM^ :laughing: Perhaps you listen to TFTO the way I often do: put it on, go do something else, then get a nice surprise when the best bits force me to pay more attention to the music again.

^ Sorry to labour a point, but there are plenty of hummable bits in TFTO, but it takes a few plays to identify them.
__________________________________

At least I can agree completely with your review of Relayer, Trollheart. I really identified with your "...but I just can't make myself care". Despite all the energy, skill and complexity of Gates Of Delirium, that was exactly how I felt. I thought To Be Over was nice enough, but this album pretty much killed my interest in Yes, and caused me to abandon complex prog for something like 35 years. In that sense it was an important album for me: "never buy stuff like this again".

Guess it relayed the wrong message, huh?  :laughing:  :laughing:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/95/Yes_Going_for_the_One.jpg)
Album title: Going for the One
Year: 1977
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals, harp), Chris Squire (bass), Rick Wakeman (Organ, piano), Alan White (Drums, percussion), Steve Howe (Guitars)
Track by track:
Note: I'm cancelling this "What I like/don't like about this" as it's getting boring. I keep saying the same things and while you're used to me droning on and probably block me out as white noise I ---------- so that's what I'm going to do now. Sorry? Weren't listening? White noise, was it? Hah. Tough. Maybe next time you'll pay more ------------ and it's your own fault. I can't help it if ----------- and is perhaps one of the most profound things I have ever written, I think you'll agree. Anyway, on we go.


Comments: Seems this may in fact be a slight turning point for me with Yes, not only for the return of Rick Wakeman but the idea of the songs being shorter and more accessible, and a distinct lack of suites. Plus there's one song on this I already know, and love, so I'm one-fifth of the way there. Mind you, I'm not naive enough to think that this is going to be the album that opens Yes up for me, but I hope it will be less of a struggle than the last three or four have been. I do mark the similarities between this and Rush's Hemispheres, both of which would no doubt have ended with a black bar across the bottom - literally - in order to be sold in record shops later. Ooh! Cheeky! Is that meant to be Anderson? Looks to me, always did, like the guy is staring up at some graphs or charts on a board.

Kicks off with the title track, and I must admit, the rock and roll guitar at the beginning took me by surprise; no gentle fade-in or ambient opening here. I almost feel like I'm back in the days of the first two or three albums, when Yes seemed to be searching for their sound and had not yet settled on the intricate multi-part compositions that characterised most of their later seventies albums. There's a sense of exuberant energy here though, particularly evident both in Howe's almost blues-like guitar work and Wakeman's sprightly piano. Anderson is in fine voice, and it's a fun song. Not something I've been saying about Yes, I have to admit. Good start.

I have to wonder about the title of "Turn of the Century": is it a little too reminiscent of Supertramp's 1974 album? Hmm. Possibility of not copying, but taking from, two other big groups in the prog scene at the time. What to make of that? This is a nice reflective, introspective little song, led by Howe's this time Spanish guitar I think with that sort of spiritual idea in the vocal, very restrained. Some really nice piano from Wakeman, though I do admit I have yet to see him really stamp his authority on this album, mark it as his triumphant return. But I'm impressed so far.

The only song into which Anderson has no input, "Parallels" is a Chris Squire solo effort. Ah and here comes Wakeman now with a sonorous throaty church organ. Nice one, Rick! This to me sounds really close to something off later 90125 or even the ABWH album. Class. Howe still holds court, of course, but the keyboard wizard is clearly back, and letting everyone know it. Then we get to the single, and of course the song I know. "Wondrous Stories" was a single, and quite a successful one too, a first real hit for them. It's easy to see why. Anderson's voice is the glue that holds the melody together here, and it's a lovely song that always gives me the idea of slowly drifting along on a river. Does the basic melody sound familiar though? Bowie? Lovely ethereal work from Rick Wakeman here. I guess this qualifies as a ballad, though I wouldn't really consider it one, as such.

But it wouldn't be Yes without at least one track that ran into double digits, would it, and indeed the closer, "Awaken", chops fifteen out of the overall running time, almost half of it in fact. Opens on a very upbeat and sprinkly piano run from Wakeman, utilising his love of classical music, and while I would hope this isn't a throwback to the overwrought style of the last few albums, even if it is, there's been enough of a real seachange here that I can allow them one indulgent track. There's some really fine guitar from Squire, and though as with most of Yes's epic pieces I find it hard to follow the idea, or even the melody, it's not as attention-losing as some of the other songs off previous albums.

The piece slows down in the midsection for a nice instrumental passage that for me gives something of a nod to western movies. The choral stuff is good too, using two different choirs that ties in well with the church organ. A nice sort of ambient, atmospheric ending with Anderson's voice floating in the air like a songbird, fading into the music.

Other than, as usual, unfinished or different versions of almost every song on the album, there are three bonus tracks, one, a nice little guitar-driven instrumental which somehow manages to rise above itself and become more than the sum of its parts, or something. Nice. Again, "Vevey Revisited" (huh?) mostly runs on Howe's guitar, though Wakeman backs it nicely with some lush deep organ and keys which really give him a chance to add to the overall melody and make it complete. And then we have one of my favourite songs of all time. Shut up, and put that damned crucifix away! No, no I'm not a vampire. Well...

You can slag off or even question the inclusion of an old Christian hymn on a supposedly modern, forward-looking, progressive rock album, and ask what the hell they were smoking when they decided to cover it, but I always love hearing "Amazing Grace". Perhaps an odd one to choose, given Anderson at least is more into spirituality than religion, but then, I love it and I'm a pagan, so what harm? Always stirring, always emotional, always impressive whether it's sung with a full choir or against a single acoustic guitar. This reminds me a little of Jimi doing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and it's mostly Howe again. I think they could have done a better job, especially with a church organ at their disposal, but however.


Afterword: (What? Weren't you listening when I said... ah. White noise again? I see. Well, I said I'm going to have this new bit after I've reviewed the album, commenting overall on what I thought of it.

And here it is.

Much has been made of Yes re-inventing themselves on this album, and I would agree. Gone, mostly, are the weird, esoteric lyrics, the long multi-part suites and the melodies that - in my opinion - went nowhere. As most prog bands would find as the seventies wound on towards the new decade, and even as their successors would discover in the decades ahead, though prog fans love their epics, the world at large does not, and if you want to make it as a band, particularly a prog rock one, you have to be able to write those shorter, snappier and more commercial tunes and get radio airplay. It's all very well writing a twenty-minutes masterpiece, but who's going to play it?

So here I think Yes realised that, targeted their audience and began to make their music more accessible. It immediately benefitted them with a number one album and a top ten single in the UK, which remains their highest-charting single there. The return of Wakeman helped, I believe, but for me it's the shorter and more relatable tracks that make this album different to its predecessors, and points the way towards what Yes would begin to evolve into.

Rating: 8.5/10
Yes or No? Yes

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5c/Tormato_%28Yes_album_-_cover_art%29.jpg)
Album title: Tormato
Year: 1978
Personnel: Jon Anderson (Vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Rick Wakeman (Keyboards, piano), Alan White (Drums, percussion), Steve Howe (Guitars)

Comments: I used to wonder in passing what the title meant - obviously a play on the word tomato - but I read that the album was originally to have been called Yes Tor - referring to one of the hills in Dartmoor, but that someone didn't like the artwork and threw a tomato at it, so we get a kind of not-quite-portmanteau but a slightly corrupted word for tomato mixed with tor, and so tormato. Right. Well, if they had kept the original title it might have been interesting to have had a retrospective collection called Yes Tor Days. No? As you will. On we go anyway. This is apparently the last album to feature Anderson on vocals before he  rejoined for 90125, so what that says about how I'll view the next album is anyone's guess. There is one song on this I sort of know, but other than that I've heard nothing from it. At least I note a marked absence of suites, which in the case of Yes, for me can only be good.

We kick off with "Future Times/Rejoice", which is a pretty uptempo kind of marching style, Howe as usual making sure he's front and centre, though Wakeman is giving as good as he gets. I wonder why Anderson left? Must research; he's certainly in fine vocal form here as usual. Ah right; nothing special. The usual "creative differences", and he and Rick took their football home with them.This quote from Wiki does confuse me though: "This way of working caused internal issues as Wakeman recalled: "No one was afraid to say, 'Well, Jon, I think you should sing this part.' Or 'Steve, that's a bad guitar part.' Tempers got frayed."[12] Howe agreed with the view, and believed such tensions affected the album's sound quality and tone as a result". should that not read "everyone was afraid"? Otherwise it doesn't make sense, or is that just me? Hmm. Bit of "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" there in the keyboard riff, Rick me old son!

So far, I'd say it's a far more accessible album than the likes of Relayer or even Close to the Edge (and don't even get me started - again - on Tales from Topographic Oceans!), nice bit of vocal harmony there near the end, and there's that riff again. A decent opener which gives me hope that what I experienced on Going for the One might continue here. "Don't Kill the Whale" is the song I know, though I must admit I've only heard it once or twice, and possibly not all the way through, but it is catchy, and for once a good vehicle for Howe's riffs, which really drive it. Of course, it's also an obvious single, and was, and did relatively well for them. Well, not that great actually: got into the top forty, but only barely.  See, this is the kind of melody I can follow, even consider humming along with; simpler, shorter, more straight forward and basic, while yet retaining all the Yes flourishes. I have to say, Wiki says Wakeman used synth sounds which mimic whale song, but I don't hear it.

"Madrigal" is, well, a madrigal, and very pleasant for what it is, but there's not a terrible amount you can do with an old English medieval melody, even if you're writing it new. I do like it though; sort of takes the tempo, such as it is, down a little, and while not really considering it a ballad, it is the slowest song on the album yet, some ideas there which would resurface on the later Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe album. Very short too, just over two minutes. "Release, Release" puts me in mind of one of those old suites by ELP for some reason, like something off Tarkus, but then becomes its own animal (sorry) and picks up nicely. It's certainly exuberant, but there's something missing there, for me. It's okay. The faux crowd applause and the god-damn drum solo knock it down another notch, and I'd say this is my least favourite so far.

Look, drum solos should only ever be produced live. There is no reason to have them on a studio album, at least I don't think so. Even Rush's YYZ bores the hell out of me. I refer you once again to the Bad News mockumentary: "He did a twenty-minute drum solo as his audition. Would have been longer, but I hate drum solos!" So do I, mate. Bloody pointless. I read too that that crowd bit was taken from a football match. Jesus. Next up is "Arriving UFO" which is again okay but I don't consider it anything particularly special. Some almost AOR-style keyboard arpeggios, which is interesting, but again Wakeman uses that ending riff used by Genesis to close out the first side of Foxtrot. Why, I ask? It's annoying, and unoriginal. Yeah I find this song too long for what it is, and that goes for the previous one too. They're not actually that long in Yes terms - about six minutes each - but they seem much longer.

Overall, the good feeling I was initially getting from this album is beginning to sour, and I wonder if it's likely to recover from what I see as the slump it's descended into with the last two tracks? I would have to be cruel and say I would see UFO as standing for Uninterested; Fuck Off. From science fiction then it's on to fantasy/children's stories for "Circus of Heaven", with the music a sort of carnival-style backdrop to the lyric, which for once seems to be more upfront and important in this song, but it doesn't engage me, I'm sorry to say. Am I hearing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" here? Oh Christ no! Children's voices! Save me! Christ it's like listening to the Happy Little Elves or something! Get me out of here! Awful. Oh it's gone thank the Great Pixie. I'll be cleaning the sugar out of my teeth for weeks after that!

Thankfully, "Onward", which really slows everything down and brings things back onto some sort of an even keel, is far better, and more like something from the beginning of the album. Slowly marching along in a stately, grandiose way, it does its best to re-establish order and save the album before the end, and with its beautiful double vocal it almost manages it, a true ballad and it even sounds like it has some sort of orchestral arrangement, though I see no credit for such. Given that it's a Chris Squire solo penned effort, he has to be given credit for one of the better, even best song on the album. Divine. We close then with the almost eight-minute "On the Silent Wings of Freedom", which starts off as one of those things I hate the most, a jam, which has already run for two minutes without any vocal, and I do hope it's not going to turn out to be an instrumental. But it might. I mean, it's not bad but it again reminds me of Genesis, maybe "Firth of Fifth" or "Cinema Show" and oh there's Anderson now, so it's not instrumental. That's something. But still not really for me.

Be that as it may, we have no less than EIGHT bonus tracks (not including an instrumental of "Onward", which since I really liked it I may include, but will certainly listen to) thanks to the 2004 reissue. Might as well get on with it then. "Abilene" has a nice acoustic style to it, with wind noises and, for some reason, horses neighing. It has a sort of country twinge to it, and I already like it more than most of what's on the original album. "Money", on the other hand, far from being a cover of the Pink Floyd classic, is a kind of rock-and-roll rockabilly effort, pretty throwaway honestly, with some sort of speech track running behind it, a bit pointless as I have no idea what the voices are saying. It's alright I guess; still better than most of the album was. Definitely catchy and more accessible; keyboard puts me in mind of Dire Straits' "Walk of Life", kind of. Hell, it's a fun song, and it doesn't seem you get many of those on a Yes album.

There's a lovely bass and piano line leading "Picasso", again reminds me of that Beatles classic in certain ways and I think there must be a steel guitar in there, though oddly that does not make it sound country, but does add to the song somehow. Possible mandolin too? Howe plays so many stringed instruments it's often hard to tell. Quite nice again. And short, which can't be said of the next one, "Some Are Born", which runs for almost six minutes. Oh but I really like it. Just great; has a simple but very infectious melody line, and the lyric is also simple, showing that on occasion Yes don't need banks of keys and overdubs and choirs and esoteric lyrics to make a decent song. It does, to be fair, become fairly anthemic about halfway through, but this actually works in its favour, as it goes back to the simple style afterwards, and the two balance each other out very well. This song easily justifies its length.

I would have to say there's more than a little of the late Vangelis in "You Can Be Saved", also a look forward to their work on ABWH, especially "The Meeting". It's another slow song with a shimmering Wakeman synthscape pushing it along and lovely vocal harmonies. Interestingly, it's another one written by Squire on his own, and shows his talent for songwriting (though I assume that's just music is it? Yeah, I think Anderson does all the lyrics) while it's no surprise to find that "High" is a Howe effort, drowning in guitars, the vocal almost subsumed beneath the layers. Yeah, unless that's poor production then Steve is either intentionally or accidentally blocking Jon out so that you can hardly hear what he sings. It's okay but the first of the bonus tracks I'm not quite enthusing over, while "Days" is the shortest of them all, one minute long, an a capella and not surprisingly again to find that Jon wrote this one. I can't say it's that engaging, but as they say, it is what it is.

The last two have, to be fair, been pretty poor, so can "Countryside" recover things for us? Again, it leans quite heavily on Howe, but when it takes an upswing in the melody it does seem to become a different song, with a kind of samba or salsa or some sort of Latin beat anyway, very upbeat and catchy. Not bad. That leaves the longest of these tracks, almost seven minutes of "Everybody's Song" (Elton would not be impressed) which has a kind of climbing bass line running through it at the start, and something like movie music in the keys, like a suspense or horror movie maybe. Pretty odd I feel. Given how prominent the bass is, I would have put money on it being another of Squire's compositions, but no: the whole band were involved in writing it. Can't really say it does anything for me. And then we have the instrumental version of "Onward", which has a full orchestra (I think) on it, and was definitely worth listening to. I'm glad I did.


Afterword: Given the supposed low regard in which this album is said to be held by fans and critics, I'm perhaps surprised to see most of the reviews positive. While I wouldn't call this a terrible album, it's not the progression (sorry) I had hoped for from the previous, though at the same time it's not a case of backsliding towards the likes of Relayer et al. I of course know what happens after the next one, so whether this - and Drama - would be seen as stepping stones to those albums I don't know. I'm pretty sure I heard Drama once, and did not come away with a favourable impression of it. But we'll see. For now, this one did not impress me although it started well, and there were some good songs on it. Not quite a rotten Tormato (sorry) but I certainly wouldn't be frying it up with my egg and chips.

That comment has to be qualified though by clarifying that it refers to the original album, whereas I really have nothing bad to say about the 2004 reissue bonus tracks, which could have made another album on their own, and should, perhaps, have been included on the original, maybe even dropping one or two of the weaker tracks. Would have been a far different beast.

Rating: 5/10 (I would give it higher, based on the bonus tracks, but I have to judge the album on its original issue)
Yes or No? Maybe

I don't love Tormato like I do most of the 1971-1980 albums but I do like it. I think the opener is strong, the last two tracks are great, Madrigal is quite pretty, I used to not like Circus of Heaven but these days I find it a fun little singalong number.

It's my least favorite album from what I consider their golden age, and it's certainly nowhere close to CTTE or the Yes Album or Relayer but for me it's worth an occasional relisten.