GOING FOR THE ONE

This is a very fine album. Its definatly not as good as the last three of their albums, (Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans, and Relayer, and maybe even Fragile for that matter) but this album has great production and good performances from everyone in the band. The guys are definatly working to make a really good album, and it shows. Rick is definatly laying out that he can play the keyboards and piano so well, and its just amazing to see what he can do on most of the songs. He plays the organ really well here too, its just very nice and soothing to listen to him play. Chris' bass guitar isn't as strong or upfront as the few albums previous, but he still does amazing vocal harmonies with Jon Anderson and Steve Howe, and he has always had that amazing Rickenbacker 4001 bass gutiar sound with fresh Rotosound Swing bass 66 Roundwound Stainless Steel strings that always sound so good to me. Steve's playing is superb. He plays his guitar like he has actually a million fingers on all of the songs, he is so fast and fluid it makes me think that Rick is actually playing! Alan White on drums, he is actually very good, though maybe not as good as Bill Bruford (from everything before Tales from Topographic Oceans) because he is not as complex, but he does nice simple things when he plays. Jon's singing is very good on this album, though he does make a very nice apperance on harp here.

So the first four songs are alright, maybe not great, but at least "Going for the One" and "Parrallels" are very good songs. The first four songs are just a little boring and don't get down to the "point" for me. Anyways, lets get to the good stuff. "Awaken" is stunning. It starts with the best and fluid playing of piano by Rick Wakeman, its so simply stunning, that could have been an awesome individual track right there. Then it goes to a vocal intro by Jon that very good. The rest of the song is pretty amazing, with Chris Squire actually playing a triple neck bass guitar made by wal, and it definatly has great tone. The whole song is stunning.

Maybe not the best in the Yes catalouge, but very good, and has one of the best songs ever on it, you can definatly just listen to "Awaken" for a couple of days or more because of how stunning and new it sounds (well it sounds new to me because im only 14 years old, you can bash me if you want for making you fell a little old, any viewers). Great album, definatly worth getting.