FISH OUT OF WATER

People tend to say that Fish Out Of Water is the most Yes-like of all of the solo albums the Yes members did in 1975-76, and with this I can perhaps agree. But it is still not very Yes-like at all in my opinion. Chris' distinctive bass guitar is, of course, omnipresent. But otherwise this is indeed a 'fish out of water'. This was made just after Yes' Relayer album but it is much closer in sound to that of Time And A Word. The commercial sounding You By My Side in particular would have fitted very well on that early Yes album.

Ex-Yes man Bill Bruford does a pretty good job on the drums here, but the other Yes member involved, keyboardist Patrick Moraz, is mostly pushed into the background in favour of a symphony orchestra and other instruments (a bit like how Moraz was only a background figure in The Moody Blues during the 80's). Moraz' contribution to Fish Out Of Water is largely concentrated to one or two short organ solos. The sound is strongly dominated by drums, bass and vocals. As I said, the drums and bass are very good, as are the vocals. But the presence of a symphony orchestra makes this music a bit too bombastic for my taste. This is not helped by the fact that the tempo is rather slow throughout. The presence of saxophone makes some passages a bit slick and the lack of lead guitar further weakens the sound and emphasizes that this album would be in need of a rock edge.

Fish Out Of Water is an enjoyable listen and it is about as good as Jon Anderson's Olias Of Sunhillow and Patrick Moraz' The Story Of I and better than Steve Howe's Beginnings and Alan White's Ramshackled. But none of these albums are great in my opinion. It was brave of them to go out and do all these different solo projects and it shows us the very diverse influences of Yes.

Good, but not essential.

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