RELAYER

One of Yes's best albums, even without wakeman and bruford. neither Alan White Nor Patrick Moraz can match their predecessor's style, they each add new elements to the Yessound. Relayer is one of their more intense albums, but stil manages to be one of their more inventive ones as well.

Gates of Delirium: A bubbling intro full of synths and guitars that misleads for what is to come. The lyrics telling of a battle suit the song perfectly, seeing as how the instrumental break is a battle between the guitar and keyboards for control. Steve Howe really shines here with amazing fills and runs, plus coaxing the most gorgeous tones out of his slide guitar in the gorgeous outro, "Soon". this song is absolutely perfect, good dissonance contrasting with beautiful melody. One of my favorite yessongs.

Sound Chaser: Amazingly complex jazzy intro with superb bass, drums and keyboard. vocals are not prominent until after the guitar solo. this is an intense song, but slows down majorly for the free form jazzy solo by Howe. I love his tones and textures on this solo, and the way it flows back into the intense main part. for a second here, Yes seems to borrow a trick from gentle giant: the 3-4 part vocal lines, but where Gentle Giant used words, they use sounds. Overall a crazy good experimental song.

To Be Over: A nice closer after all the excess, but if it had been similar to "Soon" it would have been a better ending to the album. Still quite good though, a nice ballad with sitar sounds from Howe.

Overall, Yes showed they could make it with the trio of singers and some different drummers/keyboardists. A good answer to the some what confusing Tales from Topographic Oceans, and completely different from anything else they have done since or before.