FRAGILE

For some reason I used to consider The Yes Album and Fragile as being stylistically and Instrumentally almost interchangeable but in retrospect the later album showed a huge development. Rick Wakeman must surely take a lot of the credit for this. Not only did he introduce new sounds to the group's music but he was having a considerable contribution to the arrangements as well. "Roundabout" is arguably the first truly great Yes track and boasts one of Progressive Rock's great Hammond organ solos. The sheer bravura on display with the epic closing track "Heart Of The Sunrise" is such that it is hard to believe this is the same group who had only recently produced the comparatively clunky "Perpetual Motion" on their previous album. Of course it is not exactly the same group hence my earlier comment about a certain Mr W Wakeman. The album boasts a third brilliant epic-"Southside of The Sky" which I always feel is one of their overlooked classics and the relatively straightforward though by no means technically inferior rocker "Long Distance Runaround". The album is not perfect mainly because it seems a little padded out by those fairly short solo tracks which apart from Steve Howes beautiful acoustic "Mood For A Day". Nevertheless on the strength of the main tracks this album is an absolute Classic.

5 stars