DRAMA

After disastrous LP "Tormato" Anderson and Wakeman left the group and guess what! - YES recorded the new album without them called "Drama". At first largely ignored by critics and followers, this LP in retrospective stands firmly and represents one of the best YES works in my opinion.

THE BUGGLES duo (Horn and Downes) brought some new wave blood to the old skeleton made of "topographic oceans", so YES sometimes sounds like THE POLICE with keyboards (even Horn's vocal resembles the Sting's in "Run Through the Light"). But the best compositions are again lengthy tracks. The opening 10-minute "Machine Messiah", with dark and heavy "Sabbath meets Crimson" riff is an excellent example how to make a typical multi-part "progressive" rock track in the old sense and not to sound ridiculous in the early 1980s.

Squire and Howe are brilliant with their instruments and backing vocals, showing that Anderson was not the only key member of the group. Particularly efficient on "Drama" is Squire's bass guitar (famous yellow-white Rickenbacker) which is often a leading instrument. Amazing odd time signatures in excellent "Into the Lens" and leading melodic riff in "Tempus Fugit" are stunning. The latter track is one of the strongest YES ever recorded and it even contains symbolic lyrics - "An answer to all of the answers to-Yes", making it somehow a sort of artistic statement of the group. Unfortunately, the future re-grouping with Anderson (who allegedly refused to sing Drama songs on stage) pushed this album somewhere behind the scene.

It is time now to re-evaluate it and I can freely recommend "Drama" to the non-fans of YES (like myself) who might have been rejected by the inflation of not always successful Anderson's "cosmic" ideas of the 1970s.

PERSONAL RATING: 3,5/5

P.A. RATING: 4/5