Yes: Heaven & Earth (2014)

I think the issue is that Yes is somehow incapable of realizing who their audience is and who they should be trying to appeal to. They just sound really lightweight, poppy and lack any energy or grit, live and in studio. You got Alan white drumming like hes playing along to a metronome, these overly bright and cheesy synth leads from Geoff Downes, Steve Howe (who criticized the album himself) playing all sloppy and probably yelling at someone in the crowd for having their phone out, and then poor Jon Davison who really gets the brunt of the criticism even though he sounds like hes trying much harder than everyone else. Yes fans don't listen to yes to hear this dated bright steady pop music, they wanna hear something out there that's gonna take them to another planet. It may not be the worst thing ever, but its exactly what you'd expect from this shallow imitation that the current incarnation of Yes is, passionless.

dougmcauliffe wrote: I think the issue is that Yes is somehow incapable of realizing who their audience is and who they should be trying to appeal to. They just sound really lightweight, poppy and lack any energy or grit, live and in studio. You got Alan white drumming like hes playing along to a metronome, these overly bright and cheesy synth leads from Geoff Downes, Steve Howe (who criticized the album himself) playing all sloppy and probably yelling at someone in the crowd for having their phone out, and then poor Jon Davison who really gets the brunt of the criticism even though he sounds like hes trying much harder than everyone else. Yes fans don't listen to yes to hear this dated bright steady pop music, they wanna hear something out there that's gonna take them to another planet. It may not be the worst thing ever, but its exactly what you'd expect from this shallow imitation that the current incarnation of Yes is, passionless.

Squonk19 wrote: Very disappointed when I bought it on release day. Lacked substance and whilst a few tracks are not too bad, several of the others are dire. Left it alone for a while and then returned to it a few months ago in the hope my high expectations affected my judgement unduly and it was actually okay. Wrong..... it really is poor. Such a shame it seems likely to be their last new studio release (as it was Squire's unfortunately) unless Howe and the crew have one last attempt to leave on a high!

dr wu23 wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: Squonk19 wrote: Very disappointed when I bought it on release day. Lacked substance and whilst a few tracks are not too bad, several of the others are dire. Left it alone for a while and then returned to it a few months ago in the hope my high expectations affected my judgement unduly and it was actually okay. Wrong..... it really is poor. Such a shame it seems likely to be their last new studio release (as it was Squire's unfortunately) unless Howe and the crew have one last attempt to leave on a high!   My thumbs up for Heaven & Earth appears to be outnumbered by a general thumbs down at the moment. The album had me hooked right from the first listen today, although it doesn't quite reach the heights of The Ladder album for me. Well after 620 ratings  it ended up at 2.34....what did you expect? I only own their LP's up to and including Drama. If you take the best tracks from the next 11 albums you'd end up with a decent LP but still not as good as the earlier ones. People must buy these later albums from once great prog bands to be 'completists'.

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - July 30 2020 at 23:13

richardh wrote: It's a real shame that there has been such an unnecessary backlash against this album. Personally I like it a lot more than the dreadfully dull Fly From Here , the only remotely recent studio album that it can be compared to. Everything else is nearly 10 years earlier. Quite obviously Jon Davison had to carry the weight of writing pretty much all of it because Squire and Howe were totally clapped out at this point.

chopper wrote: It's okay, but no way is it a four star album nor is it better than Tormato or BG. It might be better than Open Your Eyes but that's about it. Having said that, I might give it a spin later.

chopper wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: chopper wrote: It's okay, but no way is it a four star album nor is it better than Tormato or BG. It might be better than Open Your Eyes but that's about it. Having said that, I might give it a spin later. Well, Heaven & Earth is easily a 4-star album for me, and life would soon get incredibly dull and boring here if we all agreed on everything.   This was originally planned to be a Big Generator album tribute thread, until I realised Heaven & Earth was a much better album and decided to feature it instead. Sure, you obviously prefer the "poppier" (for want of a better word) side of Yes judging by your liking of The Ladder and H&E which is fine with me but I suspect you'll be in a minority and H&E would feature near the bottom of most polls on Yes albums.

Chaser wrote: The best thing about it is the cover art (one of Roger Dean's best) Not so sure about the music. It left me very underwhelmed.

Cristi wrote: Chaser wrote: The best thing about it is the cover art (one of Roger Dean's best) Not so sure about the music. It left me very underwhelmed. Underwhelmed is how I felt. too. And I did not even expect much from this line-up.  4 stars means essential and H&E is so far from being essential Yes listening for me.  Someone mentioned Big Generator. At least BG was entertaining which H&E never was for me. It lacks any kind of oomph, got no punch whatsoever (if I may say so).

Tom Ozric wrote: Light of the Ages and Subway Walls are quality Yes, no matter what. To Ascend is the ‘lesser’ track for me. And sorry Paul, but Heaven and Earth is above The Ladder for me. Not much talk about Talk either.