CLOSE TO THE EDGE

Some songs want me to go downstairs to the basement and make my own music. This can be in a positive way, as is the case with this album, or in a negative way (when I walk into the living room and my sister left the TV on on the MTV channel).

Close To The Edge is marvellous. The opening and title track is basically four parts of which three are based on one structure, but it's done in such a terrific way that it's not boring at all. Near the end, the vocals become so beatiful that I get a swelling feel in my throat and want to sing out (Sea-sons will pass you by, I get up, -bass line going down here-, I get dooooown) along with this song. There is not any moment of this that I want to miss. Well, on a rare ocassion the intro and outro. 5/5

Next comes And You And I, with a charming intro which is followed by a fitting chord progression on guitar. The singing seems a bit uncaring at the start, and then again there's Jon Anderson with "Watching the world, watching a-a-all of the world" who then starts with the mellow chorus. Then, the keyboards come in. After this, though, I find it rather boring, but still worth listening too. 4.5/5

And then it finishes with Siberian Khatru (unless you have, as I do, the 7-track version with 4 bonuses). The intro is great. Just, great. Really catching. Then there's something that's "okay", and right when you start losing interest the Sitar comes in, followed by Wakeman's harpsichord solo. The guitar work afterwards isn't bad either, and then I recently started skipping the song because there isn't much else to it. 3.5/5

13/15

A must-have.