YES

In the second half of the 60' all those positive band names approached like Love, HP Lovecraft, It's a Beautiful Day and so did Yes. Also a lot of quiet neutral names did find their way (Caravan, Egg, etc.). Yes became one of the greatest names within the progressive rock genre and I find their path interesting, because there is a straight pathway from structured, yet symphonic rock to very abstract, intellectual rock (Relayer). It's hard to say which end of this line is the better one, because this debut is a quiet easy listening and Relayer made progressive rock almost unlistenable although trained ears could be attracted to it and actually love it.

The influences of Yes seems to be the Byrds and the Beatles: they play a cover of both bands. Following records, like The Yes Album seems also to be influenced by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, which is of course related to the Byrds (David Crosby plays in both groups). Although the sang seem to be influenced, the music sounds already much like some later work of Yes and I conclude that they already had found their own sound, which did just slowly changed over time.

While I do really like some of the songs the overall quality is just good, but not essential. The first two songs are the best actually. "Beyond and Before" has a nice hard-rocking feel with a little mystic touch created by the vocals. "I see you", which is originally of the Byrds has great jazzy drums and nice jazz guitar melodies within a silent context. The other songs all have some symphonic lines in it, but are not catchy enough to justify the easy structures. This record deserves 3,25 stars; for Yes fans however this is an excellent addition to their collection, because of it's historic value.