WELCOME

Along with Starcastle, the Swiss band WELCOME from Basel was probably the closest thing to a total Yes clone that existed in the 1970s prog scene. This band formed in 1975 and decided to pick up the jettisoned sounds of Yes' early album styles ranging from 'The Yes Album' and 'Fragile' to 'Close To The Edge' and even 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' without taking things to that level of complexity. This quirky derivative band may not have been the least bit original but surprisingly captured the essence of Yes' early 70s run and the most shocking thing about it was that this self-titled debut did it with only the three members of Tommy Stebel (percussion, acoustic guitar, tubular bells, vocals), Bernie Krauer (electric & grand pianos, organ Mini Moog, Mellotron, vocals ) and Francis Jost (bass, electric & acoustic guitars, tuba, vocals).

The band existed for six years before breaking up in 1981 and released two albums. This eponymous debut and a sophomore album titled 'You're Welcome.' Yeah, the band name is about as uninspiring as Yes' moniker itself and the album titles even more atrocious but what is quite surprising is that the music is actually quite good although you may think this was some sort of lost sessions of Yes itself during 'The Yes Album' era. Nope. It wasn't. This is a trio of Swiss Yes worshippers displaying their love of their favorite band. Despite the fact there is no real guitarist other than accent guitar strumming, the results turned out better than anyone could expect mostly because of WELCOME's reinterpretations of famous Yes riffs and themes such as vocal harmonies that permeate this album in abundance.

The album is also quite rich in organs, pianos and mellotron. The band had a firm command of the symphonic prog sound and had a great sense of style that had they chosen NOT to borrow the vocal styles and Squire mimicking bass grooves, might have bumped into a style of their own. While my reaction to such bands is always with apprehension as i find derivative bands to be more nauseating than pleasant, i have to say that this was a WELCOME surprise in how well these three guys pull off five super proggy tracks with two just shy of the 9-minute mark and the sprawling closer 'Dirge' clocking in at 12 1/2. This is definitely one for those who have drenched their reality in Yes music so much that they are looking for other bands that adopted their signature sounds in order to satisfy that addiction.

WELCOME is laced with stellar keyboard workouts sounding very much like Rick Wakeman and the bass is a dead ringer for Chris Squire. Add to that the beautiful vocal harmonies that sound as if 'I've Seen All Good People: Your Move / All Good People' had been vivisected manyfold and reconstituted in every possible way and then rerecorded in the studio. The problem of course is that as a mere trio the album sounds a bit incomplete no matter how wonderful and catchy the actual tunes are. Had the band added a couple more members this could have been of equal caliber of the early Yes canon save the total lack of self identity of course. By the time WELCOME released this debut in 1976, Yes itself had moved well beyond its 1971 album style culminating with the brilliant 'Relayer' in 1974 so like Starcastle, WELCOME figured why the heck not just adopt the orphan sound laying dormant in history.

This is an extremely pleasant album to check out and although WELCOME will never replace the true heroes of prog, their arrangements were quite excellent as they mined the early Yes catalogue for as many classic grooves, riffs and melodies as possible. There are many moments that you can tell exactly which song was mined and others that are actually quite brilliant that Yes SHOULD have thought of themselves but overall this is more derivative than not however it was probably too soon to pay tribute to an active band's history a mere five years after Yes invented these sounds. For what it is, it's quite excellent but what it is, is of course the ultimate clone of Yes right on par with Starcastle therefore very good but not really an essential album.

3.5 rounded down