YES-TODAY

Yestoday gathers tracks from "Open Your Eyes" and "The Ladder", plus a few choice live cuts from the "House of Blues" album. It shows the songwriting ability most bands only dream of and the live power no one can get close to.

Disc one storms in with the crunching guitar riff of "New State Of Mind", then brings us the joy of "It Will Be A Good Day", before the first dip into the past with a mighty rendition of "Perpetual Change", before "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" reminds us of what we were all singing back in 1983. Then there is 11 minutes 22 seconds of YesMagic, "And You And I" from the "Close To The Edge" album is one of the best YES tracks ever committed to vinyl and this version is one of the good ones, HOWE'S searing guitar lines cut through the epic themes, whilst SQUIRE conjures up some seriously heavy bass lines.

Disc two has the Sherwood influenced "Open Your Eyes", and the very modern sounding "If Only You Knew", a dedication from JON to his wife. The album ends with the ultimate YES song, "Awaken" in all its glory, seventeen and a half minutes of spine tingling genius. Originally released on the 1977 album "Going For The One" this ANDERSON/HOWE epic was always a RICK WAKEMAN showcase, the classical piano intro, followed by some of the best guitar you will ever hear, ANDERSON'S crystal clear vocals, then the dreamy percussive section and finally the earth shattering church organ bring the song to a breathtaking climax before ANDERSON and HOWE bring back a brief moment of calm. This version is a very, very good one with KHOROSHEV emerging having most definitely earned his stripes.

This compilation double CD captures YES tracks from two studio albums: "Open Your Eyes" and "The Ladder" plus some cuts from "House of Blues" live album. If you have all the three albums, purchasing this CD is a waste of money. The reason I purchased it because at that time of purchase I did not have the "House of Blues" live album. And you know why I wanted this live album? Because I was so curious wanting to hear how the Russian "Igor Koroshev" plays his keyboard replacing Rick Wakeman's place, especially in "Awaken". He does a great job here.

The CD package design is lousy, I would say. However the liner notes that contain a brief story of the band during Sherwood and Koroshev era plus some elaboration on the return of Rick Wakeman and a bit story about legendary producer Bruce Fairbairn are good and informative. The photograph at the back of the liner notes seems inconsistent with the line- up featured in the CD as it shows the Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye era (90125, Talk, Big Generator). Really misleading Yes newbie. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Hotchpotch

"Yestoday" is a rather strange compilation, gathering together a number of tracks from Yes' recent albums "Open your eyes" and "The ladder". Also included are live recordings which previously appeared on the "House of blues" collection, the compilation running to almost 2 hours in total. Since the original versions of many of these live tracks appeared on albums released in the band's classic years, this initially gives the album the deceptive appearance of drawing its tracks from a much more diverse period than is actually the case.

The disappointing "Open your eyes" was a Yes album in name only, with Billy Sherwood dominating throughout. None of the regular keyboard players participated, and the tracks were generally AOR based pop rock. "The ladder" was generally acknowledged to be a return towards the form expected of Yes, the tracks generally having more progressive structures.

The live tracks from "House of blues" include many of the perennial live songs, including "and you and I", "Perpetual change" and "Awaken".

The release of this album was no doubt an effort by the record label to extort more income from "Open your eyes" and "The ladder", possibly due to relatively disappointing sales of those albums. Since it is a budget label release, it offers a good way for those unfamiliar with those albums to obtain many of the tracks from them, together with some excellent live performances, at a knock down price.