SONG OF SEVEN

Song Of Seven is possibly Jon's weakest solo album ever (I haven't heard all on them yet). It is an album full of sweet pop melodies and very light weight rock 'n' roll. It is also extremely low on progressive content.

The album starts out with a song driven by drum machines. Fortunately, this is the only song here that has drum machines, but it is enough to leave a sour taste for the rest of the album. Some Are Born was a song Jon worked on during the aborted Yes session for a follow up to Tormato that never happened (a previous version is available as a bonus track on the remastered Tormato CD). This song would be quite good if it wasn't for the awful saxophone break!

The song Don't Forget (Nostalgia) is where he really looses it. This do-whoop, 50's style soft rock 'n' roll number is just awful. And Heart Of The Matter is a song that would fit perfectly on a Phil Collins album! The very short Hear It is the first good song of the album, coming in as track number five though, this is way too late to save the album from utter mediocrity, and besides, this song is not even two minutes long! Everybody Loves You has a good melody, but so much more could have been made of it. The same goes for Take Your Time. And don't even mention the unimaginative lyrics on these songs!

Days is another song that was a Yes demo. This one is also a bonus track on the Tormato CD. This lovely song is the only track that has the mood and feeling of Olias Of Sunhillow, especially the harp driven coda to the song. It is worth pointing out that two of the best songs on this album were Yes demos.

The only track here that can be said to be progressive is the 11+ minute title track. But even this is quite subdued and falls very far behind anything Yes ever did, before or since. It is fully listenable, even enjoyable, but not memorable at all.

This album is only for Jon Anderson fans and hard core Yes fans, but even for them it is not essential (especially, if you have the remastered Tormato CD). Even the 90125 album (which I consider the weakest Yes album of all time) is much stronger than this album. The only thing that Jon ever did, that I can think of, that was worse than this album, was his dreadful collaborations with Vangelis.

Not even the very nice Hear It and Days, and the decent Some Are Born and the title track saves this album from a one star rating. Sorry Jon! Things would get a bit better for the next one, Animation.