RELAYER

Replacing Rick Wakeman with Swiss keyboard whiz Patrick Moraz for one studio album, Yes produced RELAYER, their darkest, most savage statement, and one of their very best works. THE GATES OF DELIRIUM is a true sonic epic, full of bizarre sound effects, crashes, screams and general pandemonium, and the group's playing is magnificent throughout. SOUND CHASER is pretty much more of the same,sounding like some high-speed nightmare painted in sound, while TO BE OVER brings us down to a more tranquil level - the pleasant come-down after the mad high. The lyrics (as ever with Yes) may be rather nebulous, but who cares when the music is as thunderously exhilarating as it is here? This is a key work in the progressive rock canon of the 1970s, and it's Yes's most atypical venture of their classic first decade.