TORMATO

UPDATE: Another overly-harsh review that doesn't correspond with the "good but non-essential" rating. The 'half-decent' tunes I mention, are in fact entirely decent, I like them in a different way to the seriously proggy earlier stuff. But my opinions on the bad tracks remain full of criticisms and tomato-related puns.......

REVIEW: You say tomato, I say Tormato, lets call the whole thing off...

I wrote in my 'Going for the One' review that that album was an example of Yes trying to expand their audience without forgetting they were a symphonic prog band. This rotten record shows the band THROWING PROG OUT OF THE WINDOW and attempting to get "down with the kids". As you would expect for the creators of 'TFTO', it fails. When Rick Wakeman threw that piece of fruit, he sure as hell hit the right album with it. I mean, there are some very occassional juicy parts, namely 'On the Silent Wings of Freedom' and 'Arriving UFO'. But these are outnumbered by the pips.

'Don't Kill the Whale' was a respectable single with an important message, and is thus forgivable. 'Release Release' is quite well executed too. It's the softer, squidgier songs that turn me off. Particularly the irritatingly sweet 'Circus of Heaven'. No prog-head can digest such fruit. With regards to the popular 'GFTO' again, that album opened up to the world of shorter songs, but remained relatively progressive. So by this point Yes had two roads ahead of them. Unfortunately, 'Tormato' continues down the commerical road, waving goodbye to anything tasteful. Why is it cringeworthy? Because it wants to be commercial but isn't. I mean, if Yes had knocked the Beegees of the no. 1 spot, then their commercial change in direction would have been justified. But even the disco-digging general public ignored 'Tormato'.

Splat. The filler is abundant in this "bad fruit". A few songs on here are potential prog epics. Their potential was never realised. For those half-decent longer tunes, and the guilty pleasures on here: 3 stars.