CUT FROM THE STARS

And so we are, eagerly the ones or skeptically the others, but everybody awaiting Mirror To The Sky, the new album of that multi-generational, trans-millennial musical proposition called, just for the sake of brevity, Yes.

In the meantime, the band is tempting us with this single song, which seems to contain many clear references to different moments in their life:

The minimal synth figures in the beginning immediately remind of the pop stylings imported by Geoff Downes from the Buggles sonic palette. The magnificent bass line by Billy Sherwood, running through the whole affair as the backbone of its inner rythmic complexity, sounds like an open invitation to dream with a long awaited return to the golden age of prog, when the re-invention of the bass place and mission within the band proudly became the hallmark of Yes' musical style. I'm not saying this is going to happen next, but now that everything is possible, it's certainly what I wish. There are also here those great three-part vocal harmonies, making for a smooth transition between the many sections of this brief piece, that remind me the sweet roundness of their pop period. A more decisive input of Steve Howe's guitars, on the other hand, is maybe missing.

So, what's it gonna be? I positively don't know, of course, but I'm enjoying for now this first instalment of a band in the process of re-imagining themselves. That's their task as artists, after all.