FLY FROM HERE

YES, Anderson and Wakeman are not on board. YES, Horn and Downes are back. YES, there's a Roger Dean's cover. Does it make this album a Yes one? My answer is YES. First of all, the so called epic is not a suite but 5 songs tied together with some sort of continuity. That isn't per se a bad thing, but the transitions are somewhat forced, which prevents the parts from flowing as they should in a multipart song. Benoît David's voice is hafway between Jon's and Trevor's, which IMO is a good thing, because it still sounds like Yes. Squire's bass gets more presence than Howe's guitar and White's drums are kinda buried in the mix, but I think that it helps the music (in Drama he often sounded like a hard rock drummer). As for the songs, the highlights (the prog ones) are We can fly overture, parts 2 and 3, and Into the storm. The songs are simpler but have catchy hooks, and the lyrics are comprehensible. Some call this album Drama II, but im my opinion this is more of a group effort than merely a follow up resurrected from the vaults. A solid 3,5 stars.