THE YES ALBUM

Though this might not be my favorite Yes album ever, its definatly awesome. This marks the entrence of one of the best guitarists ever, Steve Howe. Howe brings increadible riffs and awesome soloing to the band. Peter Banks was a very good guitarist, but he was nothing like Steve, his style, and his overall playing is much better than Banks. Anyways, we get strong performances from every band member. Chris' bass is very upfront as always, the unmistakable Rickenbacker tone, and Jon Anderson with his near-female voice is always clear, and very interesting with all of the harmonies and stuff with Chris and Steve. Tony Kaye is okay at the keyboards and piano instruments, but the next album, Fragile, has an even better keyboardist, Rick Wakeman.

The album starts with "Yours is no Disgrace" which is absolutly awesome, with crunching guitar, heavy bass, nice drums, and unmistakable organs makes this an awesome song. It starts out with a very straight forward chording by Steve and Chris, and has very deep and heavy passages throughout the whole song. The rest of the album is not bad, but the only song that can really match "Yours is no Disgrace" is "Starship Trooper," I'll get to it later. So there is one live song on the album, "Clap" (There is a studio version on the new remastered edition if you are interested in listening) which is pretty interesting, though not as interesting as the rest of the album is. "Starship Trooper" is one of the best songs on here. Its so melodic and laid-back and pretty sounding. All of the keyboards and gutairs sound excellent here, it just makes me feel "right" when I listen to "Starship Trooper." "I've Seen all good People" is kind of annoying from the vocal standpoint, the begining is just really hard for me to listen to, but the rest of the song is decent, but about halfway through the song is becomes harder and more rockish, which makes it a bit more enjoyable, for me. "A Venture" is always one of the songs that I skip forward, its kind of boring and a little too short my taste. "Perpetual Change" is alright, but not as strong as the other "epic" songs.

Overall, this album is pretty awesome for more than half of the album, but the rest of it is just okay. It does have its own feel that I do like. If you dont have this Yes album, get it.