WONDEROUS - A TRIBUTE TO YES [AKA: THE REVEALING SONGS OF YES]

This album that I was forced to listen to in order to see if it really did deserve 5 stars is simply another take on the inferior Yes and Friends saga. Furthermore this album is identical in content to another tribute album here so here is a duplicate of my review. Ho hum.

I had already purchased a number of these fake Yes albums and they are never anything more than a curio for the Yes freak who must have anything emblazoned with Roger Dean's logo. Admittedly the music is bold and close to the original Yes sound but the thin production and frustrating mediocre structures mar this project considerably. It really is a one off listen as none of the songs warrant anything more than a curious ear. It is interesting to hear the different versions, but nothing here holds a candle to the original studio takes. The vocals are very strange at times but quite intriguing. The edited versions of the songs are a mercy killing, as the band are not up to standard to play the ambitious full versions, for instance Awaken is downsized to less than 7 minutes. Adam, son of legend Rick Wakeman, cashes in on his father's legacy admirably but this is definitely an album you should only pick up if you are a completest or if you see it for a couple of dollars in a bargain bin. "The Yes Story" was another album I picked up like this but I was ripped off on that occasion, though it is better than this sorry tribute. It is a tag team of vocalists presenting their own special touch. Steve Overland sings on Revealing Science of God and Owner of a Lonely Heart; Nikki Squire, his wife, sings Long Distance Runaround; Eddie Hardin sings America; Judie Tzuke sings Roundabout and Wonderous Stories; Damian Wilson sings Going for the One and And You and I; and Dougie White sings Awaken. That is quite a lineup and I loved the versions by the lovely Judie Tzuke, definitely worth listening to enhancing the beauty of the songs. In fact she sounds uncannily like Anderson but with a more pronounced vibrato and much thinner on the high register.

The other singers are okay but Jon Anderson is a tough act to follow and always the preferred choice. It is nice to hear Rick Wakeman play Hammond on Roundabout and Wondrous Stories but it would have been better if he had played on all the tracks as the inferior keyboard work of his protégé Adam Wakeman is really not good enough. Lee Pomeroy is bassist and is okay but nothing like Chris Squire, Ant Glynne knows the material but does not have the Steve Howe magic, and Richard Brook's drums barely scratch the surface of White.

So this exists as a curio just like all the Yes and Friends albums. The relatives of Yes and others are okay to listen to on a dull afternoon as you load the dishwasher but will disappear from your memory very quickly. There are many volumes available of these cash in collaborations, and they are always a curiosity; nothing more, nothing less.