Relayer: Yes

Yes's excursion with Moraz replacing the thought to be un replaceable Wakeman and doing a damn fine job. I love the jazz textures on this 1974 album. What's your opinion of Relayer?

Edited by SteveG - January 02 2015 at 11:42

It's one of my favorites. I've heard many times and it still gets better with each listen. "Soon" must be one of the most beautiful moments in Prog.

One of my top 3 Yes albums, along with CTTE and TFTO.

Agreeing with most of the posts before mine.

Excellent, along with GFTO, but doesn't hold a candle to Fragile or CttE. In fact, I just listened to Chris Squire's "Fish Out of the Water", after paying way too much for it, and it clearly trounces all of the Yes albums from this time range, a five-star effort IMHO... the album Yes should have made.

^I think Wakeman was overwhelmed!

My fave Yes album.  Tales was bigger in scope but Relayer was more compact...kind of like taking the creativity of 4 album sides compressed into 2.

Not really sure. I really love Gates from Delirium... but on the other hand, Sound Chaser is one of the most annoying songs they have made (though it does have it's moments). And To Be Over is just rather frustrating.... it's got some really beautiful melodies, but this is one song that I feel goes on for too long, I like much better the solo versions Steve Howe has done with it, at about half it's length, and mostly (or totally) driven by acoustic guitar (I just wish they had made an acoustic version of this song with the whole band on those acoustic sessions Yes did in the 00's). And getting back at Gates of Delirium, I like much better the version with orchestra on Symphinic live, so I might actually not need the Relayer album at all.

Hi,

I'm not sure how to say all this ... but here goes an attempt.

I have stated many times, that their previous albums is one of the greatest things ever written and done in rock history. It might not be appreciated by many because (in my book) they are too conditioned to the hit/song concept, a lot more than they are to something longer, more extensive, and conceivably, much more difficult to define.

YES in those days, and in the media, took a lot of flak for that piece of music, and it was  unfair, but it pretty much told you that there were two camps of people right away, and we already know about one of them from Keith Emerson's stories about various composers, who appreciated being noted, but had no idea or appreciation for what was being done to their piece with the new instrument!

You had the rock press, that was all "hero" and "ass" oriented. It still is. Not an inch of that is about the music or the work at all. The other camp was the classical music folks, all of whom thought that rock music was simplistic crap that should not even be called music. They have a right to say that when the compositions they are working with have 20 instruments on their staff, which means attention to detail is more important, and rock music has a tendency to only have 4 of these listed on the staff, and it is way too simple, and just having notes in there is not enough of a description, or definition of music. Mozart was using 4 instruments 400 years ago ... !

For me, the long cut i n"Relayer" was a major finger to the audience and to the critics. And it was an assault. And in many ways, pure "progressive rock", though we don't like to consider or accept the notion that something was improvised and developed that way, instead of composed. As an "classicist" or a person defining these pieces within a classical context, this gets harder because if there is one thing that those folks have not accepted in the history of music, it is ... ELECTRIC. And unffortunately, this involves 99.9% of all rock music!

For me, as I started to state aboe, it was a major finger, but in the end, the band had to give in to the audience and what made them the money which more than likely came from the record company at the time. The end piece of the large title cut is the 100% opposite of what the title cut was, and in side 2 you had a redo of a previous piece by this band.

I like the first side. I can do without the rest of the album! The guitar work, is to me, just like "Mother sky" (Can), or "Yeti" (Amon Duul 2), and I love those pieces, but they have one thing that Relayer did not have ... the guitar was not tiresome, and did not wear on your ears. Here, as nice as it was, after a while it came off as a true overindulgence, and not necessarily meaning anything more interesting on the visual story of the musical piece. Both CAN and AMON DULL 2 pieces are well rounded out with slower and quieter moments, which Relayer does not shine on, until the end of the piece. In that sense it was too much and if YES in 2014 is an example, it tells you that Squire and Howe, simply enjoy playing around together, rather than others ... and we never caught that before.

Lastly, I think that the record company hurt YES ... they released this album to the radio stations as a "banded" version, and considering that they were already famous for a couple of complete sides, seeing this made it harder for radio stations to enjoy something ... you would needle here and it was too busy and noisy, and you would not select that part, and go on to the next break. I'm a proponent of complete pieces, and to me they make better sense in one piece, not in parts. Does Beethoven's 5th sound better if you only hear 10 minutes of it, or all of it? Just pt 1, or part 2? See the point? You lose the perspective, and I'm not sure that rock folks have ever gained that appreciation, and they killed a lot of very good music because of it.

It's a good album. for me, however, there is only one album that matters by this band, and it is not "Relayer".

Edited by moshkito - January 04 2015 at 12:59

bhikkhu wrote: I really like the album but it must be admitted that the classic Yes formula was getting a bit worn out by this point.

Edited by richardh - January 05 2015 at 02:03