UNION

Yes

Symphonic Prog

2.52 | 1230 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

This might be Yes' best album. I haven't heard all of their albums yet, but have heard the 'classic' stuff, except 'Going for the one'.

In the seventies Yes made prog that looked down at your nose; was cold and it's main purpose was to drag songs out to over ten minutes, often to the twenty minute mark. It wasn't a love, rather an exercise. The music usually lacked feeling, soul and hooks. It was prog for prog's sake, it wasn't prog for the love of exploring music. In the 80's they teamed up with Trevor Rabin and became a pop outfit, which is a good thing. Jon's beautiful voice was now able to sing lyrics that actually could connect with people and could have an emotional impact. The simpler and less pretentious lyrics suited his voice much better. But '90125' is just that, 80's pop that is fairly predictable. It is still a good record, but this one is better, as you get more surprises and it's less predictable.

My favourite tracks on here have to be 'Angkor Wat' and the beautiful 'Take the water to the mountain'. With these songs, especially the latter, Jon becomes like a pleasant friend, almost guru, who put's his hand on your shoulder and says 'The world is beautiful and everything is going to be fine'. These songs have a strong spiritual persona. I also love the gorgeous acoustic guitar ballad 'Masquerade', and find the brief instrumental 'Evensong' interesting. There are also catchy anthems like 'Lift Me up', 'Saving my heart' and 'Miracle of life'. But even the more conventional songs have spiritual overtones and often diverge from the norm enough to be interesting. Other highlights include 'I would have waited forever' and 'Shock to the system' though there are very few weak moments on this album.

It isn't all out prog, but it's interesting, spiritually pleasing pop-rock, often original and of-course it has plenty of strong riffs and is quite catchy at times. It's not perfect, I think there are a couple of songs that aren't quite that strong, but it's strong enough for 4 stars.

Brendan | 4/5 | 2010-6-1

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