TALK

The commercialised Yes of the Rabin era return with Talk. From the pop song Walls to the ethereal Where will you be, Yes continues down the road travelled with 90125 and Big Generator......but with even less success.

Rabin's guitar work is middle of the road at best. The vocals of Jon Anderson are wonderful as always. Original Yes man Tony Kaye on keyboards creates literally nothing worth noting on the album, but his work on Where will you Be is the exception. Alan White is solid as usual, as is Chris Squire.

Walls is the biggest disappointment on the album, co-written by Roger Hodgson of Supertramp fame. The song reminds me why I never was a Supertramp fan. A very generic, forgettable pop song.

The heaviest song is the starting movement to the last track Endless Dream. A fine overture subtitled Silent Spring, it is over much too quickly. But it leads into the next to movements Talk and Endless Dream and give the album some of the sounds we've come to expect from Yes. Only the distorted vocal section of the middle movement struck me the wrong way. Jon Anderson's voice is too good to distort in any way, shape or form!

Good for Yes completionists............Wonderful if you like the Rabin era..........but this is not your father's Yes.