THE LADDER

I like Homeworld but except for the beginning, when I have the familiar thrills when Jon enters, it is boring due to weak and repetitive instrumental parts and the dreadful ooh aah backing vocals. Horrible. And where are keyboards solos? And there is a contrast between "space" theme of middle part and Jon singing to plain piano in the ending part. There is no logical reason for that part, it comes like deus ex machina.

Maybe production was too rough or something? I shall not judge the late Bruce Fairbairn though.

It Will Be A Good Day and If Only You Knew are the worst examples of Jon's poppy attitude (He really shouldn't write such simple songs)

The Trilogy Lightning Strikes/Can I?/Face To Face - Yes with dance loops? Even Rabin or Horn wouldn't dare to spoil Yes spirit as much. And I'm not against innovations and experiments but when you get ordinary dance songs instead of wonderful acoustic songs telling important story that you expect, you are rightful to call that experiment a mistake.

Hep Yadda and Finally: Finally, what the heck is this? Weird but weak, Jon should think of something better, more sophisticated than singing to the keyboards I can feel the earth moving right after crude rock first part.

The Messenger - I grow up with a brother who listened mainly to reggae crap (and also to Toy Dolls the worst punk you can imagine) and it is for me hard to bear another AOR song claiming Bob Marley was great, not to mention obvious lyrics.

New Language- too long and boring, but has good moments when Jon sings, but where is interesting keyboard solo? Maybe Igor was too shy to be as creative as Rick?

Generally, where are the climaxes of this songs? They are just too short or just too long, the complicated compositions -usual feature of prog- are simply lacking. And choruses are irritating, except for Homeworld and New Language.

Sorry that's bitter, but after The Ladder I was keen to give up Yes and willing not to bother of their lineup changes and other fortunes. Two stars only, which means that no real Yes fan is allowed not to have it in his collection.