THE LADDER

With this new 6-piece formation, YES could regain some of their musical creativity in my opinion, even not yet comparable to their 70's virtuosic era. Igor Khoroshev who played in few tracks on the previous 'Open Your Eyes' album joined the formation as a full member.

The opening track 'Homeworld (The Ladder)' is a really well composed long (9 minutes) track, with nice mood changes. There is a great movement in the middle of the song, with all instruments making great harmony. The acoustics guitar work followed by nice Anderson-Khoroshev duet at the closing, also makes this track really good. The other long track 'New Language' is a nice showcase for Chris Squire's bass playing. The first 2 minutes of intro section is very powerful. The beginning of following vocal section reminds me to 'Circus of Heaven'. 'If Only You Knew' is a great love song, with nice chord progression. This should be as well a highlight of the album.

Other tracks are good and each of them has their own uniqueness. 'Nine Voice' features Steve Howe's signature sound from the Portuguese guitar. 'Lightning Strikes' although quite poppy, still has a great rhythm section from Alan White's drumming and Chris Squire's bassline and interesting ornaments of world music. Similar great rhythm section in 'Face to Face', with great baseline. 'The Messenger' is a song about Bob Marley and therefore has a bit of reggae flavour. 'Finally' is a track with notable Steve Howe's great signature guitar works.

From the YES catalogue in the period of 80-90's, this album is one of my favourites, along with 'Drama' and 'Talk'. I love to hear again such a wonderful and fluid bass playing by Chris Squire, as well as Steve Howe plays signature style of his works in YES classical eras. Three stars for the effort to bring back YES' musical creativity.