BIG GENERATOR

Those Yes fans who were horrified at the direction the band seemed to be taking on 90125 would have been equally repulsed, if not more so by Big Generator, the second Yes album with guitarist Trevor Rabin taking Steve Howe's place. 90125 had seen the band return with a more slick and commercial melodic rock approach with prog moments sidelined. Big Generator continues in that tradition with an even more commercial and popier side on display for the most part. Sounds pretty awful? Well much of it is and this ranks as one of the worst albums of their illustrious career though not as bad as the abysmal Union album which would follow I have to admit.

The lightweight Almost Like Love with its thin sounding and sterile 80's production is a classic example of what I dislike about this album. It's an uptempo pop/rock song with even a mock brass section, its only redeeming feature being a half decent Rabin guitar solo. Anyone remember Haircut 100? Yes really! But for the distinct vocals of Jon Anderson it's heading in that territory!

Other tracks in this commercial pop/rock vein are Rhythm Of Love and Love Will Find A Way though do benefit from a bit more musical muscle and stronger melodies and are listenable. Final Eyes starts with the band in largely acoustic mode and thus suffers less from that 80's sound until it kicks off with full band present and turns into more lightweight fluff.

I'm Running amazingly starts with a calypso feel before descending into more commercial rock though admittedly it does contain more time/tempo changes than most songs keeping it marginally more interesting.

And so it goes..with only a few moments of interest to make me sit up and listen but even they are substandard when put alongside classic Yes. Though not what I want from a Yes album I did quite enjoy the previous 90125 which had some strong AOR moments but unfortunately I can find little to recommend here.