TORMATO

Ok, everyone. I am a long time progressive rock fan, and this is a great site for me. This will be my first review. Be gentle. The first time I heard Yes it was the Tormato album. I was a teenager and a friend of mine told me that when he went to London on a trip he was talking music with his cab driver, who told my friend that Steve Howe was the best guitarist in rock and roll. Naturally, being a fan of Eddie Van Halen, I had to check it out. I found a discount copy of Tormato at the record store and listened to it. At first I didn't get it. It sounded nothing like the overproduced and overmanufactured music I was used to hearing. Yet I could tell it was much more complicated. It was something I would have to grow into. Now, 25 years later, I look back at that album and realize that a lot of lifelong progressive rock fans, and dedicated Yes fans don't seem to get it either. They don't feel it lives up to some of the monumental work that came before it in the Yes catalog. I can see their point, but would like to add my perspective. I think Tormato is the best album Yes did combining outstanding musicianship and a lighter touch. My personal favorite Yes song is probably The Gates of Delirium, but it isn't a fun song. It's a war. It almost makes you break out in a sweat, and then when Soon comes in, I almost sigh audibly, like a cool breeze just blew through me after a blistering day of labor in the summer sun. Tormato is not like that. Tormato is just a cool breeze, not as transcendant as the breeze at the end of the turmoil of Gates, but in and of itself, Tormato is an album that makes me feel good. The song structure is more typical, no 15-minute epics that everyone is so fond of. Some may say they sold out that way. I disagree. I don't see how someone can stay stagnant, never change, and be said to progress. The topics are comparatively understandable compared to typical Jon Anderson output. I like dense lyrics but, let's get real, Jon is singing to himself in a lot of the classic stuff because he's the only one who knows what he's takling about. The lyrics on Tormato are accessible. There is also a positive vibe running through the album. You can't say that with all their stuff, nor should you be expected to. But Yes at times came off as a little intellectually stuffy, and Jon had his head so far up in the clouds I couldn't really relate. But here you find yourself listening to the best lineup of rock musicians ever assembled really blowing it out and enjoying themselves in a way that doesn't feel self-indulgent. It sounds like they're smiling while they're playing. It also sounds more spontaneous while still being well-crafted. Many of Yes' albums don't have the spontaneity this one has because the lengthy, very scripted musical progressions sound very layered and controlled, albeit it in a great way. Tormato has a wildness and a freedom about it, which may be why the last track "On the Silent Wings of Freedom" is as stellar as it is. The single from the album , "Don't Kill the Whale", just rocks in a way only Yes could rock. It sounds almost as if it were recorded live, and Steve and Rick really go to town on some of the most catchy riffs Yes has ever recorded. "Madrigal" and "Onward" are just beautiful with a capital B! The arrangement on "Onward" is especially unique. Even while you are reveling in the incredible harmonies and keyboards, you're forgetting that the arrangement you're hearing is like no other ballad you've ever encountered. I also like "Circus of Heaven" and the personal touch Jon adds by including his son on the vocals. There's a lot of wonder in that song, and even though his son in the song doesn't fully appreciate what he's seen, there's not really a sense of hopelessness, but of looking forward to the day when the boy can look past toffee apples and clowns and also appreciate the marvelous spiritual and cultural matrix that surrounds him as an inhabitant of this planet. Since this was my first Yes experience and I grew to love the album, I began to search their music. I found many great albums, some undoubtedly better than Tormato, but I never found the same wild, free, exciting atmosphere I found when I listened to this record. Fragile was close at times, and was a better album. But Tormato, for me would always be the definition of the positive vibe that inspired the band's name: Yes. I haven't gone deep into the structure of the songs. You've probably already heard them anyway. And I haven't mentioned the other great songs--namely, "Release, Release"--But I wanted to give my impressions, and see if you may have felt some of the same things. Because, for me, the best progressive music also makes you feel, not just think. And I feel Yes' Tormato, though much maligned by hard-core fans, stands on its own as a great album. It makes me feel good.