DRAMA

Now that Yes have released an album with Benoit David on lead vocals, perhaps it's a good idea to give Drama another look. After all, before Fly From Here it rather stuck out as being the sole Yes album not to feature Jon Anderson - now, it looks like Yes albums without Jon are not going to be quite so unusual.

As a matter of fact, Trevor Horn's singing on this Yes incarnation owes a lot to Jon's delivery, and is a credible replacement for his. And the musical fruits of this brief union with the Buggles are outright intriguing - a very plausible extrapolation of Yes' style into the 1980s, with modern synthesisers and production values adding an intriguing sheen which serves material such as Machine Messiah well.

Whilst some of the songs rely a bit too much on repeating motifs and outstay their welcome a bit at first listen - I'm thinking in particular of Into the Lens and Tempus Fugit - over time I have found that the album grows with repeated listens, with a particular aesthetic and vision excellently developed.

Overall, the album represents a fascinating and potentially new direction for the Yes sound which unfortunately was not followed due to the album's commercial failure. Chris Squire deserves particular credit for his bass work, which is as sophisticated as always, whilst Steve Howe wheels out some of his heaviest and most aggressive guitar playing this time around.