CLOSE TO THE EDGE

The first time I heard the pleasant birdsongs that open the title track of Yes' 1972 masterpiece driven out by the jarring keyboard and guitar figure over some of Brufords sharp drumming I was taken aback. It was like being tossed down one of the waterfalls in the gatefold art. Like that Roger Dean painting showing a disembodied landmass hovering in nothingness, this album is the perfect combination of the earthy and the airy. Their second and last album with the incredible Anderson-Howe-Wakeman-Squire-Bruford lineup found the band abandoning songs, and even lyrics as we know it. Words were chosen for their sound, not their meaning even as the bands compositional sense was as gloriously cut and pasted as Anderson's words. Its difficult to revisit a genre classic such as this with a fresh perspective, but such a new look is worth it for a landmark work of timeless music as this. There are certain parts of this album that I only begin to appreciate with time, like how in the "Preacher and the Teacher" section of "And You And I," Bruford and Squire go into a loose-limbed pattern that perfectly compliments Howe's slide guitar. Or how the guitar solo in "Siberian Khatru" builds off of Wakeman's harpsichord noodlings to soar to unexplored heights. By creating a work so out of trend and singular in its vision, they've left us with an album that hasn't dated a second these last 35 years. Where Anderson's lyrics would eventually reach laughably meaningless levels, here they are emotional and pregnant with meaning. No one else could make a line like "And you and I/walk over valleys of endless seas" so empty and aching. But all this talk of art ignores the fact that this album is catchy as hell. And it is.