UNION

For a record that has received such harsh criticism from so many directions, not least from several of the band members who contributed to it, I have to say that this is a pretty good hour's worth of music, and one which I enjoyed a great deal more than I expected.

Yes, it may be a less "pure" Yes album than some from their classic era, but what I hear are more or less distinctively classic Yes songs, some showing varying amounts of influence from Trevor Rabin's 90125 flavour of early 80's US- influenced Yes. Kind of what you'd expect. There's plenty of musical interest, and it's quite accessible, at least to me.

The track which particularly impressed me was "Silent Talking". I also really enjoyed "The More We Live - Let Go", and wasn't offended by the fact that this latter song does not sound much like a Yes song (as indeed is logical enough given the level of involvement of Billy Sherwood).

I would rate this at about three and a half stars. In my view it contains almost as much musical interest as the more highly-regarded classic albums by this band in my collection.