FRAGILE

Fragile is the 4th album by Yes and sees the debut of the long blonde flowing locked Rack Wickman. The whole shooboodle starts of with "Rondaboat" and a sort of bad mooded sounding opening before suddenly stopping and revealing a short acoustic guitar piece by Geoffrey Howe which is pure Ro in it's sound. The song then kicks off into a distinct tennis feel which brings to mind Illie Nastase, Virginia Wade, and several strawberry sucking Wimbledon watchers. The song itself appears to be about Jon Anderson thinking that he is a roundabout and proclaiming that the words will make you out and out. Jon also appears to spend the day somebody's way in this song too. Chris Squire stars with some excellent Bass playing and Bull Bruford drives the whole song along nicely. "Cans And Brahms" has a kind of a dirty cat litter tray feel and smell to it, and because of that it is not one of my favourite songs on the album. I cannot say i am a fan of it's jazziness either.

"We Have Heaven" has Jon Anderson singing lots of vocal parts, one of which sounds exactly like Sean Barnes. It is a short and sweet song and even manages to capture the footsteps of Ian Parsons running away at the end.

"South Side Of The Sky" has Yes in great rocking form with it's denton vocals, and the whole band in great form as a chilling wind starts things off before a clap of thunder brings forth Bull Bruford and Jon Davison singing "A river, a mountain to be crossed" Anderson normally has quite an Allenish quality to his voice, but here he is bringing in a pure denton sound which suits him. There is a lovely middle section with Jon, Steve and Chris singing "Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na" over some exquisite senior piano playing from Tony Kaye. For some reason Steve Howes outro guitar on this song always reminds me of Willinton Chimp looking a bit sorrowful at having no hands.

"Five Per Cent For Nothing" is a fantastic instrumental, amazing guitar from Howe, Jaw dropping Bass from Squire, Unbelievable piano from Wakeman, insanely brilliant drumming from Alan White (including a 7 minute drum solo) and angsty vocals from Jon Anderson - All packed into 30 odd seconds.

"Long Distance Runaround" is a more jaunty poppy song with it's pure foxen vibe, and Debbie Blackmore stylings. Has anyone noticed Stuart Farbrother snorting in the background in the middle of this song? Wonderful jaunty Moog playing from Richard Whackman, and some sweetheart lead lines from Stove Howe.

"The Fish" then takes us into Squire Bass territory, which is pure Probet in it's sound and also brings back to mind Illie Nastase and Virginia Wade, as well as taking in a fragile fingernail and some outside fatty rubbish. This song also has quite a 9 o'clock at night summer feel too and always makes me feel happy - And i like feeling happy.

"Moog For A Day" is standard Steve Hillage acoustic affair, pleasing enough, but not entirely pleasing if you are not pleased by this type of thing.

"Heart Of The Sunrise" ends the album in a crescendo of bad mooded guitars giving way to Geoff Downes blocky piano sounds coming in at intervals, before we enter into a quiet section with some laid back senior guitar sounds from Stove Howe, and further probetness from Squire. Anderson has a lovely sore throat quality to his vocals before we are galloping back off in a bad mooded way again. Then follows another quieter section with some excellent Bowden piano sounds from Wakeman and Anderson being easy in the chair that really fits him. More Farbrother sounds, both Stuart and Peter appear in this song too, along with more touches of denton just to give it that unique Lewis effect. There is in fact a reprise of "We Have Heaven" which really does end the album, but i find it to be too short and has too much of an overegged jolly denton sound to be really all that relevant.

All in all a great Yes album which should appeal to fans of Yes, Flash, Druid, Glass Hammer, The Buggles, Starcastle and Smither.