OPEN YOUR EYES

I did miss a couple of stops on the Yes journey after Big Generator, but when Open Your Eyes came out, I was very impressed with not only the sound, but also the songwriting. Firstly, they were now injecting even more creative sounds into the songs, with two guitarists, one of them being Steve Howe, who's obviously grown in terms of originality in guitar tones during his time off with the band, and the other being Billy Sherwood, who also covers the keyboard parts. The arrangements have a somewhat similar sound to the 90125/Big Generator albums, but slightly less aggressive, more shaped, and more unpredictable. There are some astoundingly adventuously full arrangements on a lot of these songs to get your mind working, and the whole thing is mixed to make for an exremely pleasant listening experience. Take for example the exciting fireworks of keys and guitars in the intro to the title track. You gotta admire Yes for keeping things fresh each time around. As for the songs, they have largely gone back to the writing style of Time and a Word, with relatively shorter songs than their most progressive period, but with more of a purpose and personality than their pop/rock records. The lyrics are all very good, optimistic, and universally understandable, and "Universal Garden", "No Way We Can Lose", and "Fortune Seller" are just great, great songs, the latter of those resembling something from their late 70's period. It's also refreshing to hear a simple, relaxing song with just acoustic guitar and Jon Anderson's plaintive vocals on "From the Balcony", and the amusing descending vocal harmony chord progression of "Man In the Moon" is really something different for them. If the second half of the album was as jaw dropping as the first half, I would consider the album a masterpiece, but as it stands, Open Your Eyes is an excellent collection of really good songs, that happen to be arranged and performed immaculately.