THE LADDER

I bought Yes' "The Ladder" on vinyl and found it peculiar. It came in the heydays of the CD and now 2013 the new release is on LP. It came originally in 1999 with this Yes' set up: Jon Anderson (vocals), Chris Squire (bass, harmonica, vocals), Steve Howe (guitars, steel, mandolin, banjo, vocals), Alan White (drums, percussion, vocals), Billy Sherwood(guitars, keyboards, vocals) and Igor Khoroshev (keyboards and vocals). They came up with a new Yes' sign and a Roger Dean cover with odd rock formations, not very detailed though.

The music is powerful and both impressed me and made me little disappointed. The band is very coherent and every track has classical Yes approach in some way. Sometimes it's Steve Howes weird guitar or Chris Squire's ego bass, or sometimes Jon Anderson's voice experiences it's former glory and some luxurious keys can be heard. What made me little disappointed was the lyrics that seem to be silly and its feeling of pop music(per se progressive pop).

The best track is the starter: "Homeworld(The Ladder)" which contains some of the greatest Yes' ingredients: coherence, rock, synths, pretentious guitar; it has both crazier and calmer parts.

I also want to mention "Face to face" as a well done work with drum fanfares and unusually good musicality and "Finally" which is a ecstacy-Yes explossion with exuberant melody and "New Messenger" which has great parts. Otherwise the music over all is decent and worth listen to if you like Yes. If you ar'nt especially interested in Yes' music and history I find no meaning with it. So of course I could have rated it as fans only(2 stars) but I think it's a good record and it states Yes can still play, and develop.