YES

With a sixties rock sound spiced with their own arrangements and textures, but still far from the world of adventures and interstellar fantasies that they knew how to build from the "Yes Album", the legendary Yes begin their musical adventure in the late sixties with the album of the same name.

Without bombastic or exaggerated instrumental flourishes, forceful pieces make up a good part of the album. Like the opening "Beyond and Before" and the raspy bass of Chris Squire complemented by the distorted guitar of Peter Banks, or the stealthy "I See You", a cover of The Byrds transformed into a very jazzy improvisation that Banks shares with the awakened percussion of the master Bill Bruford, also very active on the fast-paced "Harold Land" and, above all, on "Every Little Thing", a cover of the Lennon & McCartney duo, hammering his drums to give the song a unique vitality, crowned by some persevering backing vocals led by Jon Anderson.

And it is precisely the singer who tentatively begins to outline some of the distinctive elements of Yes: his high- pitched, crystalline voice, and his tendency to describe landscapes supported by gentle melodies, as with the beautiful "Yesterday and Today", or the fragile "Sweetness".

Although it was unthinkable at the time to foresee what Yes would become, there were some hints on their first album of the paths they would take a couple of years later, with "Looking Around" and the Hammond, inseparable companion of keyboardist Tony Kaye, and the metaphorical "Survival", a bucolic reflection between philosophical and mystical about the human stay on the planet, poetically described by Anderson.

Without being a dazzling debut, and maintaining a low profile that has failed to take off over time, partly because of the overwhelming success of their later works, and partly because practically none of the songs on the album have been part of the setlist throughout the British band's tours for years, "Yes" is an album well worth listening to and enjoying.

3/3,5 stars