YES-TODAY

This compilation double CD captures YES tracks from two studio albums: "Open Your Eyes" and "The Ladder" plus some cuts from "House of Blues" live album. If you have all the three albums, purchasing this CD is a waste of money. The reason I purchased it because at that time of purchase I did not have the "House of Blues" live album. And you know why I wanted this live album? Because I was so curious wanting to hear how the Russian "Igor Koroshev" plays his keyboard replacing Rick Wakeman's place, especially in "Awaken". He does a great job here.

The CD package design is lousy, I would say. However the liner notes that contain a brief story of the band during Sherwood and Koroshev era plus some elaboration on the return of Rick Wakeman and a bit story about legendary producer Bruce Fairbairn are good and informative. The photograph at the back of the liner notes seems inconsistent with the line- up featured in the CD as it shows the Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye era (90125, Talk, Big Generator). Really misleading Yes newbie. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Hotchpotch

"Yestoday" is a rather strange compilation, gathering together a number of tracks from Yes' recent albums "Open your eyes" and "The ladder". Also included are live recordings which previously appeared on the "House of blues" collection, the compilation running to almost 2 hours in total. Since the original versions of many of these live tracks appeared on albums released in the band's classic years, this initially gives the album the deceptive appearance of drawing its tracks from a much more diverse period than is actually the case.

The disappointing "Open your eyes" was a Yes album in name only, with Billy Sherwood dominating throughout. None of the regular keyboard players participated, and the tracks were generally AOR based pop rock. "The ladder" was generally acknowledged to be a return towards the form expected of Yes, the tracks generally having more progressive structures.

The live tracks from "House of blues" include many of the perennial live songs, including "and you and I", "Perpetual change" and "Awaken".

The release of this album was no doubt an effort by the record label to extort more income from "Open your eyes" and "The ladder", possibly due to relatively disappointing sales of those albums. Since it is a budget label release, it offers a good way for those unfamiliar with those albums to obtain many of the tracks from them, together with some excellent live performances, at a knock down price.