DON'T KILL THE WHALE

I could never understand why so many Yes fans don´t like this song. Don´t Kill The Whale to me stands as one of the last truly classic Yes gems. The lyrics may be a little on the simple and naive side but really, at the time, it was something new. And the melody is great. Fantastic arrangement too: Steve Howe´s guitar solo is very fluid and melodic. Wakeman´s keyboards are awesome, specially the final synth solo that reminds the sound of a whale, wonderful. He used the Birotron, a new instrument that was an improved version of the mellotron. Very few were produced in fact since synthesizers were taking over. The industry thought the mellotron era was gone (little did they know... but in the 80´s they were treated as a thing of the past, to be avoided at all costs).

The flip side, Release Release, was a good album track, but nothing special. I used to think it was a bit too heavy for Yes, but since my sister loves it, I guess it is a matter of taste, really. I wish I had the uk version, since at least it had an unreleased song as the b side instead.

Again, if you have the Tormato album, this is only for completionists or collectors.