YESSONGS

A highly-rated triple album capturing the band's live sound during the end of the peak years of The Yes Album through Fragile and Close to the Edge--right up to the departure of drummer Bill Bruford. The album is truly a wonderful testament to both the magical flow and content of a Yes concert as well as to the band's thorough and detailed dedication to live reproduction--here representing what stand up over time as some of the band's greatest songs. Unfortunately, this album is almost universally degraded for its poor sound reproduction. Though sometimes I find myself remarking at how much more clarity has been given to the individual instruments, there is often a strangely murky and/or open-air quality to the sound, so I hate to admit it but I have to agree; it's almost like being present in the general admission pit for a live concert! No wonder I never liked live albums.

4.5 stars: some truly remarkable captures of some of the greatest songs to ever come out of progressive rock music performed at a to-this-day astonishingly high level of skillfulness.