TIME AND A WORD

"Time And A Word" is an overlooked transitional album between immaturity and maturity.

After the unsuccessful debut, Yes come out with what some consider the least enjoyable album of the band during their golden era. "Time And A Word", however, shows clear improvements, and is a good transitional album between immaturity and maturity.

Compared to the debut, things have unquestionably changed: while the first was more towards the psychedelic side, thus more melodic and naïve, "Time And A Word" is clearly a Prog Rock release: the musicianship has clearly improved, especially Jon Anderson, who doesn't sing quite like he'll do on following releases, but still becomes the center of attention when a part is sung. The drums, the guitars, the bass, and even the keyboards by Tony Kaye, soon to be replaced with legendary Rick Wakeman at the release of "Fragile", are also a big refinement. The overall sound of the LP is going towards a more mature type of music, as mentioned, Prog Rock: much more keyboards used, the song structures are definitely more interesting, the melodies more elaborate.

Despite all these things, it's still a not yet mature album, and it has some flaws, especially in the songwriting, which at times can be annoying, like in "Dear Father", where the melodies aren't doing it at all for me. The ability to write powerful, good, songs has not yet shown in "Time And A Word", thus some songs can be forgettable. However, others are much more appealing: "Astral Traveler" is a spacey, more memorable song, with great musicianship and performances. The opening track also shows some of the magic that will eventually be abundant in a Yes song, "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed". Then, the frustrations can be somewhat frequent in some other moments: other than the mentioned "Dear Father", a song like "The Prophet" starts great, but ends up to loose itself with a mediocre melody. "Then","Everydays", and the title track have also similar flaws.

Despite the negative sides, "Time And A Word" isn't a bad listen overall: the improvement should be considered, and it's what I am most considering when rating this album. Not at all like the following albums, but still, underrated.

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