THE MORE YOU KNOW

These days, Jon Anderson seems content to work within the confines of Yes, with only occasional guest appearances elsewhere. He has however, over the years, been second only to Rick Wakeman in terms of the proliferation of solo albums he has made.

While his earliest solo work followed a reasonably progressive path, he quickly settled down to making male vocal AOR based albums. "The more you know" falls very much into this category. Recorded in 1998, this is pretty much Anderson's latest solo album at time of writing, save only for his 2006 Tolkien venture.

As might now be expected, "The more you know" is very much a pop focused album with strong ethnic influences. Anderson's (then) recent marriage to Jane Luttenberger Anderson persuades him to include her in the line up as a second vocalist. Jane's vocals are adequate, but the combination simply serves to accentuate the pop aspects of the sound. The line up is completed by keyboard player Francis Jocky who is also responsible for composing the music (although Anderson credits himself with the "melodies") and his brother bassist Bobby Jocky.

The ethnic influences are particularly to the fore on "SAY" where Francis adds some African lyrics to the strong rhythms. On the title track, Anderson tries to recreate "State of Independence", but the song lacks the strength in depth of that track, with what remains being a rather dull monologue. Titles such as "Gimme love" and "Dancing fool" indicate all too clearly the funk/soul/pop we should expect from them. We should perhaps simply be grateful that Anderson has not so far attempted to allow such sounds to infiltrate Yes.

The low point of the album comes with the oh-so slushy lyrics of "Ever", where even Anderson seems to reach a point of such embarrassment that he resorts to scatting instead. On a more positive note, the gentle ballad "Heaven's love" is pleasing even if it is a rather predictable and unadventurous song.

In all, this is not an album to investigate simply because of the Yes connection. There may well be an audience for this type of music, but I can find little of genuine merit here.

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