ANDERSON BRUFORD WAKEMAN HOWE

This is a sort of a "Fragile-era Yes reunion" only without Chris Squire. They intended to call themselves Yes in the first place but as Chris Squire was the owner of the name of the band and not willing to take part of the project, in the end they opted to simply call the group "Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe". The bass duties were taken by Tony Levin although he didn't contributed in the songwriting.

The album was a return to form. Long gone were the mellotron and the side-long epics but instead of that they delivered a collection of modern progressive rock. The compositions were very inspired, powerful and extremely fresh, there is almost no weak moment on this record, only maybe the quite boring "I'm Alive" at the end of the Quartet suite and the IMHO out-of-place "Teakbois". The rest of the album is excellent and easily the best material that any Yes-member would write in a good while. It's a pity that after the tour supporting the album these songs were put to rest until this day.