CLOSE TO THE EDGE

I'm sure that almost all of you think that this is a wonderful album for good reasons, but I simply cannot see what they are. Yes is often touted as being a very talented group of guys who made some very complex music that was at the top of the genre. However, I have to disagree. The songs on this album are polyphonic in the same sense that keeping an elephant and a tiger in cages at your house makes you a zookeeper. Yes...some of the elements are there, there are a lot of things going on at one time, but to me, they seem to have very little to do with each other. I have never been able to understand what people like about Anderson's voice, I think he sounds like a low-rent Geddy Lee. The only person on this album who is really performing well would be Squire, and even then, there are better bassists out there. I, speaking as a composer, do not get a single thing out of the music on this album. There is absolutely no form and no continuity between lines. I understand that some people like other parts going on that have nothing to do with the melodic line, and I sometimes think it's fun, but these songs simply do nothing for me. Now, if they were to trim out some of the extraneous parts and maybe give some of the instruments parts that actually have something to do with anything, this could be a fairly solid album (like The Yes Album). However, it really seems like some of the guys in the band, especially Howe, were feeling extremely confident when they wrote these tracks and wanted as many places to show off as possible. The guitar rarely does anything that contributes to the song at best, and at worsts draws my ear away from some of the tolerable melodic lines. And speaking of melody, Yes could use a few lessons from some more mature bands as to how to write a recognizable one. As for the songs...

Close to the Edge - this track is nonsense until the last couple of minutes, which I quite liked. There is hardly a recognizable melody, and all of the ... envy going on really detracts from the song and distracts the ear (by which I mean that every member of the band seems to always want to be the most important part).

And You and I - This track is a little more in their vein. I like the acoustic sound, and Anderson sounds less like a whiney little girl than usual. The melody is considerably better as well. The song is kind of static though.

Siberian Khatru - Why couldn't Howe play more like this all the time? This track is a far better example of polyphony. Until the keyboards (Wakefield never really gets into everyone else's groove for this entire album) come in, this sounds like it might be a fairly good track. Even with that, though, when the vocals come in, the track comes together quite nicely. I like the two-part voice bit a lot, and this track stays fairly well in line. One thing I prefer about this song over the others previous is that it is an actual 9 minute song, rather than a sad attempt at a suite. Yes isn't capable of more than two "sounds", and sadly it's that one has vocals and the other doesn't. This does not lend itself to a suite. This is really, I think, the best-composed track on the album and is the one I would most prefer to hear.

America - Very nice track, short and sweet.

As others have said, the last two tracks ALMOST redeem the album, but then you realize that the entire album really sounds the same, but some parts are more non- sensical than others. I quite liked The Yes Album, because they managed to make their "sound" seem polished and professional. This album really sounds like a bunch of testosterone-laden teenagers who can play their instruments fairly well. The big tracks on this album really are not put together very well, and they are cacophanous. This is not to say that I like soft mood music, I like music that rocks as much as the next metalhead, but this is not the good kind of craziness. I have tried to get into this album many, many times over a period of two years, and every time I listen to it (I've listened to it through a good twenty times), I can only find more things about it that I don't like. I have really never been much of a Yes fan, but I have tried to give this one a fair go and see if I could find what everyone likes so much about it. Sadly, I can't. I feel that I'm missing out on something big, so as much as it pains me to go against what so many other people have said, I really have to give this one a two-star rating. I think that if I had to pick out the things that I really dislike about Yes, it would be that their sound, and songs, are very static. They rarely feel like they have gone anywhere when the song is over. There are very few places in any song on this album that sound even moderately different from any other (in my opinion, of course). Additionally, I have never thought that the band members were very talented, and I don't think they even play together well. I feel that there are a lot of better albums out there, even in Yes's discography.