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Most of the songs have very simple structures, actually. The songs will be verse chorus verse chorus maybe a bit of soloing then verse chorus again, maybe a brief bridge, the bridge being sung by Chris Squire usually. Yet, the music is really engaging, innovative and enjoyable, and really catchy.

The beautiful 'I am waiting' is highly melodic and very atmospheric. The verse is so gentle and gorgeous, colourful melody, and the verse is emotionally cathartic, with Jon declaring 'I am waiting! Are you ready!' I think it is about waiting for a love. Also excellent is the soft, romantic, medieval 'Where will you be' with poetic love song lyrics, and Walls, an excellent, joyous number that is so catchy.

This song, Walls, is interesting because it is sung by Trevor Rabin and was co-written by Rodger Hodgson, who was formerly of Supertramp. I think these dinosaur bands should collaborate more often because when they do the results usually come up great. One very well known example are the travelling Wilburys, which mostly stood head and shoulders above anything that those artists were making at the time. The same here, 'Walls' is a highly memorable song, admittedly it may not interest a person who wants more progressive music, but it's an extremely memorable pop song, and there are few memorable ones coming out now. Mostly these bands eventually fracture and go it alone, because of personal disputes and the like... what a shame. They might put out much better music is they worked together.... enough of that, on with the other songs on this album.

They are all quite good, sometimes the vocals are a bit sloppy, or they are produced a bit sloppily, but the music is good. 'True Love' is a more haunting tune, 'State of play' is a groovy rocker, but the chorus is a bit weak, really loses the momentum that was built up with that killer opening riff and vocal harmonies about 'this is the revolution'. The closing 'Endless Dream' is a token prog-epic, the boys probably feeling the pressure to add one to their albums, but it's not anywhere near as boring as it could have been. There are some interesting sci-fi sounds, and that frantic piano followed by heavy guitars, near the start, that's quite good.

The opening 'calling' seems like a great anthemic AOR pop-rock song, but really fails, I think.. The main riff of the song is actually very similar to a Van Halen song 'Best of Both Worlds', which, itself, sounds very similar to 'Celebrate Good Times' by Kool and the Gang. Not sure if the Yes boys had inadvertently heard one of these songs on the radio, forgot about it and regurgitated it from their memories when writing this song!

Sometimes I feel these songs have been dragged out to a long time, like 7 minutes, just to please fans. Although this music is catchy, sometimes I feel like the songs are floundering around, repeating the chorus and the like just to take up time.

Anyway, sorry for the long review, 7 out of ten, which, I know, is 3.5 stars, but this is too good to chuck a three at it, I think.

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