YES

The grunge explosion in the early nineties that followed the pop and new wave trends of the eighties added a challenge for the survival of the progressive heroes who were forced to reinvent themselves once again to face this hostile scenario. And a worn out Yes, with constant entrances and exits of their most representative members, make a stop to their differences to reunite and develop under the conciliatory and opportunistic name "Union" (1991), the thirteenth album of the band.

Harmonizing so many personalities and particular egos was already a complicated task, and in spite of that an endless and incomprehensible list of session musicians was added, according to producer Jonathan Elias due to the apathy and lack of involvement of the musicians and especially of Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe whose parts were replaced almost entirely by sonorities that work more in accordance with the demands of the market... And it is in this context that "Union" fails to consolidate itself as a fluid organic entity, weighed down by the lack of communication and commitment of the musicians.

Tracks like the 80's "I Would Have Waited Forever", "Shock to the System" that could be part of "90125" or "Big Generator", or the very AOR "Lif Me Up", navigate without much gravitation by common places, even the promising instrumental beginning of "Miracle of Life" is diluted in the lightness of some insipid choruses, the cosmic and boring "Angkor Wat" fails to take off and directly "Dangerous (Look in the Light of What You're Searching For)" and "Holding On" do not add more value to the work.

But even in the midst of its irregularity and lack of cohesion, there are a handful of passages that can be rescued, such as the excellent instrumental "Masquerade", an acoustic gem of the most classic Howe, the beginning of "Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day", the second half of "Silent Talking" with a splendid Jon Anderson on vocals and some delay choruses accompanied by acoustic guitar riffs, or the dramatic atmosphere of "The More We Live - Let Go". Moments that help to save the album from the fire.

"Union", which tried to revitalize Yes' career, ended up being one of the most disunited works, in an irony of fate.

It could have been better.

2.5 stars

I find it difficult to add anything 'new' about "Going For The One" (1977), the eighth album of British progressive rock band Yes because everything necessary has been said and written. The whole fuss that the album is quite different from their usual in production, line-up, song length and cover design, had completely passed me by. "Going For The One" was the first Yes lp I bought and I have grown up with the beautiful music." Going For The One" therefore is my reference point when it comes to Yes.

It amazes me time and time again that as a 14-year-old symphonic virgin I was so receptive to their music that I was already happy to sink into their world. I wanted to be forever part of the subtle guitar work, those virtuoso and colossal keyboard parts, that buzzing bass playing and determined way of drumming. Singer Jon Anderson was the perfect guide with his angelic voice. For about 40 minutes he managed to lead me around in the imaginary heaven on earth.

Half a century later, the impact of listening is still exactly the same, isn't that great. The build-up invariably enraptures me and I don't exaggerate. The album was recorded in Montreux (Switzerland) and it is almost inevitable that there is a well with tonal castor oil. The five songs of "Going For The One" are beautiful because of their successive build-up and each track has its intrinsic contribution to the whole. For example, the first four songs are quite short and direct by Yes standards, making them the ideal harbinger of the 15-minute closing track Awaken.

The album starts with the vivid title track Going For The One and it is the steel guitar of Steve Howe which constantly claims your attention. Interesting is the rhythmic background and how everyone anticipates. Rick Wakeman's keyboard playing deserves full attention in particular. Also nice is that the rocking song has a light-footed character towards the end, making it a pointer to the future.

The subsequent Turn Of The Century is a beautifully subdued song that is too sensitive to call it a ballad. Very nice is the lingering intermediate piece where the piano sparkles nicely and the glowing guitar notes twinkle. The song tells the story of a sculptor whose wife dies. While mourning her death, he makes a statue of her, which, as it were, revives her. Anderson got the idea from the opera La Bohème, with as additional inspiration the Greek mythological figure Pygmalion, who fell in love with a statue he made of a woman. It is obviously a typical Anderson-lyric.

Parallels, written by Chris Squire, starts with a wonderfully rocking church organ, as if the magisterial instrument was made for it. This is the organ of Saint Martin's church in the village nearby called Vevey. Also very nice are the enthusiastic parts of both guitar and bass guitar.

If we turn the record around ("Going For The One" is mainly a record: he said with respect) we get to hear Wonderous Stories. This fairly accessible song is played on the vachalia and the presence of this 12-string fado instrument makes it interesting again. With the song you imagine yourself in a waiting room, as it were. No, not from a doctor or anything like that but from the museum of the most beautiful progsongs.

A marvelous piano intro opens the door for the beautiful Awaken. The first minutes of the epic are rather vocally oriented, while the focus shifts towards the atmosphere later on. Alan White's tuned percussion has an enchanting effect, the aforementioned church organ sounds sublime and the choir is fantastic. Steve Howe's pedal stems open the sky and Rick Wakeman's Moog plugs in all the holes. The end of the song has a vastness that you want to keep listening to. High vibration go on.

I have tried to be as objective as possible in this review. Mission failed.

Originally posted on www.progenrock.com

"Close To The Edge", the fifth album by English symphonic rock band Yes, is on the edge of perfection, no, it's beyond that. In any case, the album from 1972 shows a boom in creativity that leads to sublime playing and above all to musical ingenuity. A recording had to be made of every session, otherwise the musicians would no longer be able to remember the complex parts they had come up with the day before. The advantage you have as a progressive band is that the duration of a composition is never limited. Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Rick Wakeman do their thing in just three tracks, songs of 18:50, 10:09 and 8:57 minutes respectively. As if it were no big deal.

The sacred fire of the full-length title track is ignited by an adventurous piece in the vein of Mahavishnu Orchestra. After an opening of keyboards, birdsong and running water, Yes goes full steam ahead with The Solid Time Of Change, the first of four subtitles, all parts of this mega-epic. No one but Bruford can lay down such a furious drum rhythm as he does, but his band mates also know how to handle their instruments. Just listen to Squire making his bass guitar sweat and toil and hear how passionately Howe is engaged with his guitar, while Wakeman takes an appropriate backseat. It's a graceful surprise, this instrumental opening. To kick off like this is quite overwhelming, but Yes does set a precedent for the future of many a band. What follows is a vocal section and you can't ignore it: Anderson forms the undisputed glue in this epic. In various places he lets phrases and melodies return in the song without being 'song-like'. In the subsequent Total Mass Retain, one cannot but applaud the enormous inspirational part he proves to be. Part of the lyrics are based on the book Siddhartha by the German writer Herman Hesse and have a spiritual twist with things like vicious circles, babbling rivers and Buddhist philosophies. In the third part, I Get Up I Get Down, there are some sections that tear the skies open. The church organ played by Wakeman not only sounds majestic and brilliant, the moment it appears is also beautiful in terms of timing. Initially, as I read on Wikipedia, the piece was intended for guitar and it took a genius mind to think that it would actually sound better on church organ. As a transition to the bombastic final part, Wakeman lets his Moog roar for a while. The band comes up with a fantastic closing section and then the finale has yet to come. A wonderful organ solo also passes by. Everything comes together in Seasons Of Man. It's a wonderful heap of bombast and Anderson who seems to be bursting at the seams.

After the overwhelming title track, it is a welcome blowing off steam with the two tracks of the B-side. In a nutshell: And You And I is an atmospheric folk-tinged song with lots of 12-string acoustic guitar, while Siberian Khatru is an electric guitar-oriented rocker that would not have been out of place on, for example, "The Yes album". Both songs are very strong with moments to cherish. For example, And You And I contains a great relieving section when Howe starts his pedal steel part. On such moments you forget everything around you and are most likely completely under the spell of the music. Siberian Khatru doesn't rely so much on such sections. It is a song full of infectious guitar parts, excellent harmony vocals and typical Yes sound created by Mellotron and harpsichord, among others.

"Close To The Edge" is a monumental album that stands out as a classic within progressive rock. It is therefore not surprising that the album has been reissued regularly. For me, however, there is only one "Close To The Edge" and that is the LP I received for my birthday as a 15-year-old. Seasons will pass you by.

Originally posted on www.progenrock.com

After a lesser nineties for Yes, releasing albums of modest or irregular quality and little repercussion, the unexpected "Magnification", their seventeenth album (2001), begins the new century with a new twist to the legendary band's musical proposal, revitalising at least partially their declining image of that time.

A work in which, although there are some themes of greater brilliance than others, it maintains a homogeneous line of development and, as a relevant fact, with the surprising absence of a keyboardist, something unthinkable given the importance of synthesizers for the sound aesthetics of the English in their times of splendour, being replaced by outstanding orchestral arrangements. And the final result is more than acceptable, assuming how complicated it would be to conceive pieces similar to those of their glorious early seventies (almost three decades do not pass in vain...).

After a correct beginning sustained by attractive melodies but exempt of major complications like the initial "Magnification", or the direct "Spirit of Survival", or the catchy "Don't Go", the best moments of the album appear from the cinematographic and very orchestrated "Give Love Each Day" and "Dreamtime" (in spite of its unnecessarily long duration), Chris Squire's first time on lead vocals on "Can You Imagine", followed by the mastery of Steve Howe and his acoustic and electric guitars on both the reflective "We Agree" and the diaphanous yet emotive "Soft as a Dove" well accompanied by Jon Anderson's gentle singing and, above all, by the mini suite "In the Presence Of" which, without losing composure at any point, flows naturally throughout its four segments. Surely the best track on the album.

The sweet and brief "Time is Time" closes "Magnification", which ended up being the only album released by Yes in the 2000s, and also the last one in which the irreplaceable Anderson would be part of.

3.5 stars

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of 'Talk', Spirit of Unicorn Music have reissued it as a 4CD Deluxe Edition featuring bonus studio material and a previously unreleased live show from New York, a new interview with the principal players by Jerry Ewing, a 2-LP limited edition white vinyl set and a single CD. After 'Onion', sorry 'Union', the '90125' line-up of the band got back together so the fourteenth studio album from the band again featured Jon Anderson (lead & backing vocals), Trevor Rabin (electric & acoustic guitars, keyboards, programming, lead & backing vocals), Tony Kaye (Hammond Organ), Chris Squire (bass, backing vocals) and Alan White (drums). This is sometimes referred to as "the lost album", and somewhat to my surprise it was only when playing this that I realised I had never actually heard it before. Given how important this band was to me in my teenage years I don't know how it passed me by at the time, possibly because I never really felt that Rabin being in the band was a true reflection of Yes while I never rated Tony Kaye when compared with Wakeman.

This means I came to this album with a fresh mind, and I was intrigued to discover that this is actually way better than I thought it would be. Jon is singing very well indeed, and the music has definitely moved back in time when compared with the too radio friendly of '90125'. It kicks off with "The Calling", which feels very traditional Yes with multi-layered harmonies and picked nylon stringed guitar, it could almost be Steve Howe and then Squire comes in with that thumping bass and all is good with the world. The more I played the original album the more I enjoyed it, but what I have here is the four CD extended version, and it all goes wrong with the second. Okay, so I understand that it is a great idea to have a CD of rarities, but I am sure there are not that many people who want to listen to the same song three times in a row, even if it is different edits. At least move them through the CD, please? Some of the ideas contained on this are unfinished, and I am sure they were never meant to be heard by the public.

That being said, we can rapidly move onto the last two CDs which captures Yes performing at the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center, Canandaigua, New York on 19th June 1994. The vast majority of tracks contained on this are marked as being previously unreleased, but they are available (although probably unofficially) so Yes fans will probably have these already. But it is certainly interesting to hear this line-up in a live environment, although there is not nearly enough classic Yes contained within for my liking. However, given I had not previously played this I am pleased that it has now been made available again in multiple formats, as I can certainly see why Anderson is quoted as saying it is his favourite album featuring Rabin. Interesting.

Oooh, this one.

Heaven & Earth is really the first and so far only Yes album that left me feeling unsatisfied. Union and Open Your Eyes are far from perfect, but at least they have a kind of Yes-like energy to them. H&E just sounds sleepy and uninspired. This was made by four out of five band members who made 1980's Drama, possibly the heaviest Yes album ever made, so for them to make an album that can be compared to Bread or Air Supply, is almost unthinkable.

Yes were apparently rushed when they made this album - a fact that Steve Howe, at least, has admitted to. The production leaves much to be desired - Chris Squire's bass is far back in the mix, Alan White's drums sound thin and dinky. Geoff Downes, whom I consider to be a pretty decent keyboardist, contributes practically nothing except a recapitulation of Aria (the title track of Asia's 1994 album) to the final track on this album. Steve gets some nice intros and a few solos in, and not much else. Jon Davison I will give a pass to, because it was his first time out, but some of the lyrics - "as long as you do your cooking at home" "sweet were the fruits, long were the summer days" (that one might have been Steve's lyric, but nobody bothered to change it) are some of the cringiest, and Jon Anderson could be pretty cringy. I have no complaints about JD as a vocalist, but he lacks some of JA's exuberance. It's hard to describe JA as being "husky" or "gritty", but there's a certain roughness to his vocal that JD lacks. I would liken the difference to an alto sax vs an oboe. Same range, different tone. Also, JA tended to hang on one note for a long time, while JD tends to sing a different note for every syllable. JA seemed to like occasional nonsense words, JD prefers straight lyrics. Difference in approach, but not a knock on either vocalist.

Every song on here could benefit from a 5 to 10 percent increase in speed. There's tons of stuff that could have been edited out to tighten up the arrangements. I made a sped up, edited version of this album that played a lot better for me, but I couldn't fix the lyrics. A shame, as the base songs aren't terrible, and with a little sprucing up, this could be a solid mid-grade album, but as it was released, it's probably the worst. Unfortunately, this is Squire's last album with the band, as he passed away a year after its release. Yes gained some ground with The Quest, which would be drummer Alan White's last with the band, but it was still a fairly laid-back album. The latest album (at the time of writing), Mirror to the Sky was a vast improvement over the previous two.

I like bits of Heaven & Earth, and the Roger Dean cover is wonderful, but the music could have been a whole lot better. I'd welcome a re-edit/re-recording of it in the future.

Well... How i can to talk about this...? Where i begin...

In knowless therms... This album is a fusion between Barclay James Harvest and a New Wave band The Outfield... BJH in your acoustic dynamics, The Outfield in a vocal lines...

Yes bring a great promises in Keys to Ascension (1996- 1997), but, something happens with the band in the path... If i known? No, i don't known, but something happens there, it's a correct thing.

In last case, Yes fall here. Try a new dynamic and betrayed your first concepts from Keys to Ascension duo.

The result of this? Songs with a almost without emotion and inspiration, and a fail try to reply a No Earthly Connection album from Rick Wakeman with a worst track The Solution (the parts likes the repeat previous musics or segment on track, but the difrence to a NEC album from 76, is a off of dynamic and interest...).

In other case, i liked a refrence with a Animation Jon Anderson album from 82 with a Boundaries segment in Somedays, Someshow... Jon makes the same in The Promise Ring (curiositly released in 97 too), and in The Ladder Yes album (?). But this is it...

The Synthpop and New Wave bands are so famous by makes a anniversary versions of your albums. In same cases, with a 30+ tracks in new releases or new albums.

But, in very much examples, very bands puting in their albums 4 or more versions of your musics in a refered work. U2 makes this in a Atchung Baby, Zooropa and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. A-ha makes in Minor Earth|Major Sky from 2000.

But, what the Yes band have a aparenthal things with this? I answer! This single... Beyond the sucess of 90125, Yes makes a singles in LP's with a diffrent versions of some songs of this album (most precisally Leave It and Owner of a Lonely Heart). Various of this singles have an electronic version for a discohouses and a dance versions. To be honest, i don't like very much these versions (at least i like some tracks from Kraftwerk and Peter Schilling). But, if the band not rejected this release, i don't need to talk more...

Is this...

Review #1: Yes - Close to the Edge

As this is the first review that I intend to publish out of many, I feel like it wouldn't be right to start with any other album than Close to the Edge. It was among the first albums that introduced me to the world of progressive rock. Initially, it left me perplexed and unsure, but with each subsequent relisten, I found myself unable to resist adoring it and sharing it with people I knew, ultimately receiving many mixed reactions. Despite releasing in 1972, the album remains to be a classic with not just myself, but with many fans within the progressive rock genre. Furthermore, the album has garnered acclaim from music critics across the board and is hailed as one of the finest in the genre.

The album features the contributions from Jon Anderson on vocals, Steve Howe on guitar, Rick Wakeman on keyboards, Chris Squire on bass, and Bill Bruford on drums. This lineup is often acknowledged as their "classic lineup," and rightfully so, as each member is able to bring a unique dynamic to their sound. Each member's influence extends beyond the band and into various projects and solo careers which contributes to each of their enduring legacies. When envisioning the ideal lineup for a supergroup, it's difficult not to include at least one or two members of Yes. Additionally, credit is due to Roger Dean and Eddy Offord for their contributions to the album. Roger Dean's cover artwork, though simpler than his typical style, is complemented by a captivating landscape inside the gatefold. This adds an extra layer of allure to the album while also blending very well with the music. Meanwhile, Eddy Offord's exceptional production work shines through as he draws from his experience with the band's live performances. Offord aimed to capture the energy of their best concerts within the studio recordings.

The album begins with the monumental track "Close to the Edge." Words can hardly express the profound significance this song holds for me; it continues to stand as one of my all-time favorites. The sheer brilliance of musicianship, the intricate composition comparable to a symphony, and the lyrical depth rivaling that of esteemed poets make it a true masterpiece. It embodies the very essence of progressive rock, taking listeners on a journey through various styles, genres, and emotions. Moreover, the following two tracks deserve equal acclaim. Both stand out as some of the band's finest compositions. "And You And I" begins with delicacy, gradually evolving into an impressive crescendo which allows Jon Anderson to showcase his remarkable talent. This song underscores the significance of dynamics in music; the interplay between soft and loud passages is essential for its impact. "Siberian Khatru" is yet another outstanding piece that seamlessly blends various genres into an engaging composition.

Midway through the recording process of this album, Anderson made the decision to walk home from the studio following a difficult session that stretched into the early hours of dawn. Overwhelmed with emotion upon his arrival, he found himself in tears, realizing that he could now proudly declare himself a true musician. This moment led him to fill in the occupation section of his passport, a space previously left blank, with the title of "musician." Following the completion of this album, the band faced a significant change as drummer Bill Bruford departed to join King Crimson. His departure marked the entrance of Alan White, previously known for his work with John Lennon, as the new drummer. "Close to the Edge" stands as an essential cornerstone for those exploring progressive rock and music in general. Its historic significance makes it an essential listening experience.

Favorite Track: Close to the Edge (18:12)

The album begins with the title track, a twenty-minute suite that sweeps listeners away with a rich tapestry of varied musical influences, from classical to jazz to psychedelic rock. The interplay of soothing melodies and roaring crescendo reveals the incredible musical prowess of the band. The arpeggiated guitar melodies spun by Steve Howe, the mesmerizing keyboard wizardry from Rick Wakeman, and Jon Anderson's pure voice create a sonic experience par excellence exposing the listener to aural delights. "The Solid Time of Change", "Total Mass Retain", "I Get Up I Get Down" and "Seasons of Man" are individual masterpieces that together form a thematic narrative within the album, all of them being various sections of the title track. The lyrics are a heady mix of spirituality and existential questions, delivered with a passion that touches the soul. The performers were clearly at the top of their game, as they created rhythmic complexities and harmonies that were unparalled in the genre at that time. In essence, "Close to the Edge" is a testament to the brilliant craftsmanship of Yes, their ability to experiment with different musical styles within a single album while maintaining a cohesive narrative. For any ardent fan of progressive rock, this album remains a cornerstone that set the foundations for a genre that burgeoned into many forms in the years to come. This timeless piece of music is not just "Close to the Edge" but pushes the listener over with its intensity, carrying them through a riveting journey of musical discovery. 😊