TORMATO

Yes

Symphonic Prog

3.01 | 1823 ratings

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Finnforest
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator

Signs of trouble becoming more obvious.

When prowling the used record stores back in the day, one would go to the Yes section and find a copy or two of each title and then about 15 copies of Tormato. They couldn't give the thing away. Is it that bad? Or course not. Next to anything that would come after Drama, Tormato looks pretty fine. But like Going For The One it is about one-half good and one-half not. Lots of reviewers here think GFTO is so much better than Tormato but I think they are in similar territory. If you take the good songs from Tormato and marry them with "Turn of the Century" and "Awaken," you'd have one really solid album.

So which are the good songs on Tormato? Future Times/Rejoice, Madrigal, and On the Silent Wings of Freedom. A few of the other have nice moments as well. Only "Don't Kill the Whale" and "Release Release" make me reach for the "skip" button. "Madrigal" is a real gem which should have been taken further.

The album has a rather unfinished or rushed sound to it as if they were laying it down before the songs had been properly rehearsed. Howe's guitar is maniacal in places and sometimes this sounds really fresh and exciting while other times you wince a little bit. Wakeman seems especially disconnected to me as it he were not really listening to the others, sort of going it alone. Jon's vocals again reach the irritating space on things like "Release Release." Squire and White do their best to keep things in respectable waters.

Tormato can be an enjoyable listen occasionally but is not one of their more successful albums. The album cover is an unfortunate and perhaps ironic mess that said a little bit too much about the music within. Yes fans should probably own this album but certainly not until you've heard everything that came before it. 2.75 stars.

Finnforest | 3/5 | 2007-6-2

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