CLOSE TO THE EDGE

This is Yes's best album, mostly because it's the most consistent. It's also much better than the highly overrated Fragile. It starts of with the enigmatic title track, which rocks pretty hard for Yes, then towards the middle it slows down, then after Rick Wakeman's crazy organ riffing, it starts rocking again. Not a boring moment in the whole song. The second song on the album, And You And I, is fantastic. It starts of kind of mellow with the first section (whose name escapes at the moment) then it all of a sudden goes all awesome and spacy with the second section titled 'Eclipse' which has all kinds of synths and mellotrons I think. Then it goes mellow again for the third section, 'The Preacher The Teacher.' After some great singing and acoustic guitar arrpegiating, it goes into the fourth and final section, titled 'Apocalypse' which is similar to Eclipse, in that it features all kinds of synths and mellotrons. Then the song ends all mellow like it began. The third and final song of the album, Siberian Khatru, really rocks. It starts off with a bluesy/jazzy-rock guitar lick, then the organ joins in, and the riff it plays over the lead guitar really makes me think of the remote snowy regions of Siberia. The verses are very Melodic, whilst rocking hard the whole time. The chorus features some bluesy- Hendrix style licks, and after another Verse and Chorus, everyone starts going crazy. Steve Howe freaks out on an electric sitar, Wakeman dominates the harpsichord, and then Steve Howe plays a wicked guitar solo which also reminds of Siberia. The song ends playing that same organ riff from before, and it is truly glorious. So the whole album is fantastic, and Yes has a sound which is all their own. Yes's best album.