THE YES ALBUM

The first of a series of incredible Yes albums. The Yes Album is another album that got me into Yes music (and thus prog rock overall), it is magnificent and delightful to listen to, analyze, and simply have, in any prog collection. From start to finish the album is well written and realized, each song is a classic Yes song. There are only a couple songs that strike me as slightly mediocre, and even they grow on me more each time I give the album a listen. The band at this point has finally found it's trademark sound and have become quite comfortable with composing new music; it was certainly a step up from Time and a Word, especially with the introduction of one of my favorite guitarists Steve Howe. Of course, the band would have yet to mature it's songwriting capabilities to epic heights, and would have yet to break through the commercial barrier, but this album proved the band's potential to become one of the greatest progressive bands of all time. It is essential to any Yes fan or anyone who loves raw symphonic progressive music. Along with Fragile it's also a great album to introduce anyone to progressive music and especially Yes. I give it a perfect 4.