FRAGILE

I remember when I picked this album up for the first time. I had already heard the masterpiece Close to the Edge and had also heard Drama and had like what I heard. As a guitar player I was drawn to Howe's playing and versatility and knew I had to familiarize myself more with Yes. I knew the fantastic Mood for a Day was on this album so decided I wanted Fragile. It was three years ago and I bought it with Dream Theater's Images and Words and Bostons greatest hits (because it was only $9.99). This was an album I had sitting in the player for quite some time. It opens with Roundabout, a track surely most people have heard. To my liking, it begins with an always brilliant Howe finger-picked acoustic passage and transitions into the song. There is a fantastic, full of energy Wakeman solo later on in the song. The next song, Cans and Brahms, is a Brahms-inspired Wakeman performance. I'm not sure if it is directly a Brahms compostion interpreted by Wakeman, or a Wakeman composition loosely based on a Brahms composition, but it is great none the less. The next song, which is probably my least favourite on the album but by no means implies that it is bad, is We have Heaven. It is essentially Anderson looping and layering his vocals over a simple acoustic guitar passage. The next song is a great one. South Side of the Sky has a kind of dark and heavy atmosphere at parts which I love. Very nice Squire playing in this track. The next tune is a weird and quirky Bruford quickie. The next song is Long Distance Runaround, which begins with Howe and Wakeman playing in unison and transitions into the song. The next song is a Squire composition called The Fish in where many bass passages are looped in a similar fashion to Anderson's voice in We Have Heaven. The next song is the reason I bought this album, the great Howeian Mood for a Day. Learning this song (or at least parts of it haha) on guitar is what began my transition into the classical guitar realm. Great playing all over from Howe on this one, he lets his versatility shine here. Finally, this album ends with my favourite track on the album, Heart of the Sunrise. This is probably the heaviest rock composition to date at the time of its release. It begans with a great heavy progressive chromatic riff and then transitions into an acresendo (spelling?) repeating the same riff, which then transitions into the more mellower body of the song. The song ends with a quick repeat of the initial heavy riff followed by a door opening to an excerpt of We have Heaven. Thus ends the journey of the album Fragile.

This is a must have Yes album, from the classic Yes Trinity (Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge) 4.5 stars, I'll round up to five. It would be a definite 5 if it was more focused on band performances than solo pieces, but this is still one of the greatest moments of progressive rock.

Happy Listening friends!