RELAYER

Tales from a Topographical Ocean was a much more experimental album than any Yes had released before, and I'm not sure they sold many copies because of that. It seemed like they decided to experiment with new sounds on this album, but not nearly as much as tales. The result is a much more accesible album.

Out of all the "Epic" 20 minute long songs that Yes came out with, Gates of Delirium is by far my favorite. Every minute of the song is enjoable and there are no weak points. The best part of the song is "Soon" Jon's voice on that song is extremely good. For those of you that don't like his vocals, you deffinately wont enjoy this song.

The next song "Sound Chaser" has some overly chaotic parts that seem like way too much noise thrown together. But then it has some incredibly good guitar sections that make the song worth listening too.

To be over is a very good song with a nice Sitar and Moog intro, then a very mellow vocal melody. Its a song you would listen to right before going to sleep. Extremely relaxing. Then there are some guitar riffs that seem to explode out of the speakers and the song becomes quite a bit more upbeat. I love when songs change their mood partway through. It makes the listen alot more unpredictable and enjoyable.

The bonus tracks aren't really neccesary. Especially that entire studio runthrough of Gates of Delirium seems like a waste of space on the album. Take out the sound effects that are present on the regular version, and make it a poor recording quality, and there you have the runthrough. Its not as good as the final version, and its not really worth listening to after hearing a better version just 15 minutes before on the same album. This takes away from the quality of the whole album, and thats why I deleted this song when I loaded the cd onto my computer.

Other than the chaos of Sound Chaser and the unneeded studio runthrough, this album is very good.

I reccomend this album to any Yes fan. If you haven't heard the band before, you should start with the album Fragile. Its much more accessible and gives the listener a better idea of how Yes sounds.