TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS

Of all of there albums they had done before and after of this album in the 70's, Fragile and CTTE can be comparable to each other and Relayer was more of a jazz classic and GFTO is a very good accessible style of prog rock album. But TFTO stands out for the extreme side of Yes. You either get it or you don't.

At first, after listening to the album for the first time, i thought it was not bad, nothing special or nothing awful about it either. But when the magic grows on you on how the songs are structured and comparing the concept to the instrumental pieces, it just simply flows so well.

Although I don't think 'The Remembering' is fantastic, you have the other three tracks that are in a completely different mould to each other. 'The Revealing' is a bizzarely good way to start which has experimental style vocal parts at the begining. But even though Rick Wakeman disliked the album, he does a pretty good job on the keyboard solo clocking through at 17 minutes of the track.

'The Ancient' is what I call a tuneful avant-garde masterpiece. Sounds unusual at first, but you at least know that it works so well. Steve Howe's solo at the beginning is amazing.

But the best track of them all is 'Ritual' which is probably the best song Yes have ever recorded in my opinion. The trippy jam at the beginning flows so well and how it starts off with Jon Anderson's vocals at around 5 minute of the track fits so well. One hell of an epic masterpiece.

So really this album is a classic, but I'm still not sure if it's their best album. Fragile, Close To The Edge, Relayer and Going For The One are the other best albums they have done. But TFTO stands out for showing Yes more into the extreme side.