TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS

I didn't like this then, and I don't like it now.

In order to enjoy the music presented on Tales, I would think that the listener's blood saturation of THC would necessarily need to be at a level that would render said listener somnolent, if not catatonic.

Not that there aren't beautiful musical moments here. For The Revealing Science of God and The Remembering, I noted about four minutes worth of interesting material, which means you are getting about a 10% return on your time spent listening. The Ancient is a bit better, but still not up to the standard Yes set on their previous releases. Ritual resorts to recycling riffs from Close To The Edge, and still goes nowhere.

If Yes had not been at the top of their commercial popularity at the time, I'm fairly certain the label execs would have never released this one. Really. Listen.

I take exception with the critics of the time, who bemoaned the "self indulgence" of Tales. Self indulgence is not the problem here. The problem is that there's no compelling music. I didn't listen to the critics, I listened to the 80 or so minutes of music here, and I never bought another Yes album.

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