CLOSE TO THE EDGE

Close To The Edge could be seen as the opposite of PF's Wish You Were Here, in the sense that Yes released a masterpiece with a bunch of songs (Fragile), most of them being relatively short-lenght, and now, in this album, they released three loooong epic songs, subdivided in several movements. It means, elaborated movements, but it doesn't avoid some jammin' moments either..... they're overall in the self-titled track, the longest one. And why I said at the beggining that this album could be the opposite of WYWH? Because of the improv style of Yes: in the other hand, their musicianship are EXTREMELY skillful, and it looks awfuly like they're reading sheet music while playing their instruments.

Being more picky: the first two minutes of the CD are the perfect example of what I mean... I cannot see a piece of music well elaborated in particular, it's just a quartet of guys playing their instruments fast and loud. Of course, then the track becomes more recognizable, but that's the first impression this album leaves me everytime I hear it; Squire with his crazy bass lines, Bruford with his multi-rhythmic sessions which are good (not as good as on King Crimson anyway) but doesn't combine perfectly with Wakeman's extreme virtuosity on keyboards and Howe's fast electric guitar solos (I love Steve Howe playing classic guitar, but I gotta say it: he's highly dissapointing when he pick an electric one).

But well, the title track becomes more recognizable as I said, and then? Jon Anderson begins to sing and yeah, he sings very good (although personally I dislike his voice a bit). The outstanding part of this long track supposes to be the vocal session (I get up... I get down.....), and it's excellent, but it could be perfect if Anderson were re-released his own voice to do all the backing vocals too, because he's the only guy in the band that can sing (please don't dare to hear Steve Howe singing)... Chris Squire's voice is ok, but still he ruins a little bit to such a nice vocal work. This part falls into a strong organ noise: very fine.

And you can see: the first track for me is the only reason why the whole album deserves no more than four stars (ok, and a half) IMO, since I have no problems with the second side, which has a couple of tracks, both quite excellent; overall And You And I, with great acoustic stuff by Howe and beautiful melodies. Maybe my all-time favourite Yes song.

Four stars, and of course a masterful follow-up to Fragile, which IMO is the only Yes release that deserves to get the full rating.

Highly reccomended anyway, this is still a must-have for proggies.