TORMATO

It is difficult to know what happened here but this was a brand new beast that still garners mixed reactions from the Yes faithful. I want to like this but it is impossible when it is full of such dire tracks and awful lyrics that never resonated with me. As always certain tracks jump out as excellent examples of symphonic prog. The problem is it is a rather inconsistent album and most of it seems to have been ignored both commercially and in the prog circuit. Indeed the songs rarely trouble a Yes concert set list.

There was nothing wrong with the band lineup, in fact it was the much celebrated lineup of Anderson, Squire, Wakeman, White, and Howe. In the same way as "Going for the One", the album is more accessible, poppy and seemed to be designed to reinvent the sound, brushing aside the prog elements that made the band so endearing to pave the way for a radio friendly approach. It did not work, as it alienated fans and did nothing to generate new fans with its list of mediocre tracks. There is very little to recommend this apart from the intriguing 'Don't Kill The Whale', the wonderful wild and wacky delight 'Arriving UFO', and the soaring 'On The Silent Wings of Freedom'.

Now for the bad points and there are rather a lot of them. The album starts with a benign piece of nonsense 'Future Times/Rejoice', which starts okay and then meanders into some very boring noodling. 'Madrigal' is pretty but that is about it. 'Release, Release' is forgettable and over complicated. 'Circus of Heaven' is just plain silly and never takes off with the worst lyrics that may be classed as a guilty pleasure, but it is rather grounded in polyphonics and pointless soloing. 'Onward' is forgettable, beautiful, but tripe with Howe overdoing it on the finger plunking.

There is not much else to say, except this is a step down from "Going for the One" which was a huge step down from the excellent standard of the previous albums. It is ironic that the album cover has a tomato thrown at it; perhaps this was a rotten tomato from the fans who were disillusioned by this new approach. Yes were on a downward spiral and believe it or not it actually became worse as the 80's kicked in, effectively destroying the prog genre for a time.

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