TORMATO

Well, every band makes mistakes. Rush had theirs with "Grace Under Pressure" and "Test For Echo", Dream Theater screwed up with "Falling Into Infinity", et al. This is Yes' mistake. Why? Well, the music is somewhat poorly written, and the arrangements are VERY slap-dash. The production, also, is downright awful. Take "Release, Release", for example. The 5 guys seem to be crawling all over each other in what amounts to an impenetrable wall of sound . "Madrigal" is a gorgeous piece, though; driven by a classical guitar and some sweet vocals from Anderson. It all goes to shit, however, with "Circus Of Heaven". Oh My God...horrible. Noisy and cacophonous, with a totally random, scattershot walk-on by Jon's young son, Damion. Upon hearing him and his dad's sugary cooing, I wanted to put my fist through something. But since I was coming back from a road trip, the only thing I could've put my fist through was the dashboard, and that would not've been very thoughtful. So, 3 stars. It has its moments (Madrigal, On The Silent Wings Of Freedom), but more often than not, it's hampered by awful lyrics, sub-par production (this coming from the same group that gave the world "Going For The One" and "90125"!!!!!!) and noisy, random arrangements. Yuck. Luckily, "Drama" is growing on me, and will be reviewed at a later date.