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Jon Anderson - Anderson / Wakeman: The Living Tree CD (album) cover

ANDERSON / WAKEMAN: THE LIVING TREE

Jon Anderson

 

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3.41 | 108 ratings

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lazland
Prog Reviewer
3 stars This is a new project by the two stalwarts of Yes who are no longer with the band, one by choice due to ill health, the other shrouded in mystery to be honest.

For those who expect re runs of Heart Of The Sunrise and all, then please prepare yourself for a disappointment. This is more akin to the gorgeous track The Meeting from Anderson Bruford Wakeman & Howe's album. Basically, Rick on piano and very light symphonic synths (utilised to great effect on the wonderful House Of Freedom), and Jon singing about the issues he has always sung about.

The best word that can be used to describe this is pleasant, and I mean that as a compliment, not an insult. It is the perfect album when you merely wish to sit down, chill, relax, and let your mind wander around with the sound of two masters without necessarily having to actually doing any thinking or analysis of the music. Ambient, then, to the point of lying horizontal.

There is not one bum track on this. What the pair of them do, they do very well. Neither, however, is there one track which you could single out as being a masterpiece. Even though I regard the new Yes lineup with horror in the absence of Jon especially, there is nothing on this which will have their erstwhile colleagues recoiling in horror at the prospect of matching it with the promised album in 2011.

Such, however, was not its intent. This album, recorded over internet discussions and exchanges between the two, was released to coincide with the second round of excellent acoustic tours recently ended, and, as I say, they do it very well, and, at the end of the day, neither has anything left to prove and they indulge themselves totally to produce a non essential, but extremely pleasant work.

On the basis of my comments, I can only award this three stars, which means it is a good album, but absolutely non essential.

lazland | 3/5 |

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