MAGNIFICATION

After a long period of prog drought Yes created the stunning and new age prog- Like album Keystudios, but that is a different story. Following Keystudios was another prog album Magnification which was of a good standard but was not much compared with Keystudios or any of their other work. On the upside it easily topples stuff like Talk and Big Generator and it did feature strong connection with their other work from the 70's .

In Magnification there is no Rick Wakeman and the band was reduced to Jon Anderson, Alan White, Steve Howe and Chris Squire. To make up for the lack of a keyboard player there is an entire orchestra, a pretty good trade off in my opinion even Jon Anderson contributes by playing guitar in some parts of the album as well as lead vocals. There are some mellow songs and some interesting and good songs the best being Magnification which is the gem of the album in which both Steve Howe and the orchestra show interesting sections. Other okay songs are Dreamtime, The Death of ego and Spirit of survival. The Death of Ego features Alan White on piano, all in all it is not a great song but it is better than some of the other stuff. Spirit of Survival is a very interesting and cool song and it is stronger than most of the other songs, again the orchestra is put to good use here.

Magnification I by no means an essential album but there are elements about it which are worth having if you really like Yes. Don't be deterred by the low rating It really not all that bad but I do admit it is just a tiny bit boring in some parts. Not much has happened since then so this is in fact the band's most recent work.