ANDERSON BRUFORD WAKEMAN HOWE

Classic Yes line up minus Chris Squire. And Squire was sorely missing here. Ok, Tony Levin is a master of the instrument, but we are talking about (musical) chemistry. Frankly, I was losing my patience with Yes at the time. After a string of essential, strong, classic prog albums in the 70´s, their output in the 80´s was uneven, to say the least. And this album wasn´t going to save them, even if it is far better than most of what they have done a few years before.

What Yes fan wouldn´t want Bruford back to the drums stool? I miss Squire´s trademark bass lines, but you can´t have everythig and I could deal with that. The main problem here is the lack of inspiration, specially at the songwriting department. The strongest cuts are the the first three and I remember thinking how good they were, giving me hoep that they finally made an album worth of their historical importance. However, from the middle to the end they were running out of ideas (or so it seemed) and the LP simply dragged on. Quite the pattern for some of their future releases, I must admit. Their great muscianship could not hide some of the song´s weakness. Still, they at least delivered some good stuff if you don´t try to compare this album to their classics of the 70´s. So my rating would be something between 2,5 to 3 stars. Mostly for fans, but still good enough for the occasional listener.