GOING FOR THE ONE

Eighth studio album by YES, with Rick Wakeman rejoined the band replacing Patrick Moraz, and therefore the band returned to the 'Tales from Topographic Ocean' line up. The band change the concept towards a bit more accessible music, compared to preceding albums. But wait .. it does not mean the songs are shallower, at least not those in this album. For me, the band can maintain a great deal of beautiful complexity in relatively shorter compositions.

The opening track 'Going For The One' has a vibrant intro (with a bit of rock'n'roll feel) that sets the mood of the entire song. Steve Howe's pedal-steel guitar playing in the entire song is very impressive and gives this song a distinct feature. My favorite moment in this song is that closer to the end, the song is getting more and more intense (pretty much contributed by increasingly aggressive pedal-steel guitar melody) but then suddenly changes in a nice lick to conclude the song.

'Turn of The Century' is one of my favorite YES songs. It has a heart-warming tone with great guitar playing by Steve Howe both acoustics part in the first half of the song, and electric guitar-vocal duet part at the end of the song. Although this song has a ballad pace, Steve Howe can still demonstrate his virtuosity in a splendid way. A nice alternate version of this song is also performed by Steve Howe with Annie Haslam in the tribute album 'Tales from Yesterday'.

'Parallels' is perhaps my least favorite in this album. The instrument sections are nice but it does not have strong theme to be elaborated. 'Wonderous Stories' is a short but killer song, and is one of YES signature songs. The vocal harmony in the chorus is great. Rick Wakeman's keyboard fills, unique timbre from Steve Howe's Portuguese guitar in the intro and electric guitar fills at the end of the song are great.

'Awaken' is the epic composition in this album, with great theme and structure that has some signature styles of Rick Wakeman (including the unique sound of church organ) who composed a great keyboards work and also arranged the choral passages in this song. I love the Howe-Wakeman duets that scattered throughout the song.

This is indeed a good and strong album, with the band try a new look (well .. this applies as well to the artwork which is no longer Roger Dean's unique surreal landscape). In my opinion, this is a good introduction for those who want to know the band, as this is a bridge between former artistically more complex and later more accessible albums.