ANDERSON BRUFORD WAKEMAN HOWE

One of my earliest purchases of Yes's music, shortly after 90125, yesterday and classic Yes, coming from a musical background largely focussed on classic rock and art rock (Elton John, Queen, supertramp, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple) I was searching for music that was a bit more challenging, not ready for the big leap into unknown prog-territory, this album was a perfect intermediate, hooking me on progressive rock forever. Now, with 15 years more experience I can see flaws in this album, but at the time it came as a genuine revelation. Complex melodies, crystal clear sounds and production, very good songwriting and very catchy songs all together.

Musicianship is as to be expected from this line-up very good. Great solo's throughout, Bill Bruford uses an electronic drum device most of the time, and does so with great passion and power. In the songs different musical approaches are taken, 'classical' elements, but also world music, reggae, heavy rock and new age passes bye. Great diversity all along, but maintaining a cohesive sound rooted in classic Yes style.

1. Themes (5:58) Great rhythms, and nice piano and synth sounds, good opening song, with lots of changes. 2. Fist of Fire (3:27) Heavy symphonic rock, continuous on the style started with themes. 3. Brother of Mine (10:18) Used to be my favourite track, find it to be a bit boring now. Still great moments in here, very good piano parts, great singing, and great changes in tempo,with a lot of sounds happening in the background, best part is the last three minutes, very cheerfull, forget what i said about it being a bit boring, it grows as the song develops.

4. Birthright (6:02) Passionate deliverance from jon, fabulous guitar play and good drumming in a heavy symphonic setting. Lyrics are about a nuclear test in Australia, where the government 'forgot' to warn and evacuate all the aboriginis (In 1954 the British Government, in order to maintain the balance of power between East and West, exploded their first atom bomb at Woomera. They failed to contact all of the Aborigine peoples at the time. The Aborigines still call this 'the day of the cloud.'). A great song.

5. The meeting (4:21) A slow piano/vocal based song, great textures, just fabulous. 6. Quartet (9:22) Wonderfull piano and accoustic guitar start off this song, beautifully sung, very soothing relaxed highly symphonised song, together with the other songs my favourite track :-) Jon managed to squeese numeral Yes's song titles and pieces of earlier lyrics within the lyrics of this song, try and spot them all on the first listening.

7. Teakbois (7:39) Reggae time, with Bobby Dread and the cool running, great fun song, very uplifting, i always play this song in the summer at any BBQ, get's even the non-prog lovers up and dancing, always nice to see them stop at mid-flow and wonder what happens, when the music changes and then continue as if nothing happened at the final section of the song.

8. Order of the Universe (9:02) One of the more heavy songs on the album, and the song i listen to most, very passionate singing, strong guitars and rhythm, best part is at 5:00 minutes, sick feeling, sick reasoning, sick challenge you la la la la. very great. 9 minutes without losing strength, a rare feature in those days. 9. Let's pretend (2:56) the closing song of the album, ending with the words Do Again... inviting you to play the album again, and I for one will play it again.

It still can't compare with the slassic Yes albums from the early seventies, but surely the best thing they did since Relayer, actually quite comparable with Going For The One I think. A great album and a must listen for all Yes fans. This is the closest they came to a masterpiece since those wonderfull days in the earlie seventies, when I still had to be invented. 4 stars for sure, seriously considering rewarding it with the full five stars.

Higly recommended, I love it.