TORMATO

After some years in Prog Archives I have courage to make a review of Tormato, because being a YES fan is hard to say something unpleasant about a band that not only like, but also introduced me to Prog.

It's no secret that "Tormato" is not one of the strongest moments of Yes, to be honest, in some moments they border the extreme limits of cheesiness and have no excuse, Rabin is not here and they have the almost possible best formation except Bruford who will only join for a worst album like "Union".

The album starts with "Future Times" surprisingly is a good song despite Wakeman's keyboards choice is not the best and Jon sounds extremely more acute than usual. Despite this problems, the structure is well elaborate, with nice changes and solid keyboard PERFORMING, good start.

The catastrophe begins with "Don't Kill The Whale", the lyrics are so bad that I miss the days when Jon didn't tried to make sense, the band seems like a blind person left in the middle of a glass factory without a cane, the keyboards are horrendous, poor Alan White tries to keep the level with a decent drumming, but there's nothing that can save this.

"Madrigal" is at least coherent, the synthesized harpsichord with Jon's voice and Steve making nice acoustic backgrounds is to say the least a breeze of fresh air after the previous aberration, not one of their best tracks but at least can be listened.

"Release Release" is an attempt of returning to old days, good Rock & Roll with Baroque touches, Wakeman is pretty decent and White is simply amazing, another strong point in the album.

Now it's turn for something even worst than "Don't Kill the Wave", "Arriving UFO" can just be described as an atrocity, please Jon, when you try to make sense you mess it, the keyboards are frightening not for mystery or obscurity but because they are horrendous, use the skip button or listen it at your risk.

Oh no, I talked too fast, "Circus of Heaven" must be the cheesiest song I ever heard, the story tries to be pompous and even mythological but it's pure cheese, I can't understand why Wakeman and Howe didn't left the sessions at this moment, please avoid it at all cost or your good memories of YES might be damaged for ever, to make it worst Jon's kid section pretends to be nostalgic and tender but it's pathetically ridiculous.

"Onward" is an improvement (well anything would be an improvement at this point), the structure is simple, mainly vocal oriented with Jon going in crescendo and Rick supporting him makes believe there will be a sudden explosion that never happens, seems as an incomplete track.

The album ends with "On the Silent Wings of Freedom", starts with a good guitar and drums work by Steve and Alan with some touches of Rick's keyboards, nice but takes nowhere and Jon's voice doesn't add too much, a short instrumental break in the middle makes us believe there will be a change but sadly nothing happens and they go back again to the beginning. All I can say to describe it can be summarized in six words: Predictable, boring, repetitive and too long.

I heard the urban myth that the cover and the name of the album have it's origin when Rick Wakeman after watching the anodyne cover threw a tomato to the art, if this is true, it's the least it deserved, the cover says nothing and Tor (The originally chosen title in reference to a rock formation in Okehampton - England, which would have left the rest of the world asking what the hell they wanted to say) was a worst name for the album.

The only reason why I don't give one star is because the Rabin era albums are worst, but for that moment of YES history, this was the lowest they could get, specially with such a great formation.

Two stars and I believe I'm being generous.