TORMATO

Tormato was an album revealing a band with serious issues. First off, as Rick Wakeman observed at the time the production on the album feels rather flat, which doesn't help the fact that the songs feel tight and claustrophobic. Trying to produce shorter tracks and steering away even from modest epics like Awaken from Going For the One, the band ended up producing overstuffed compositions which often (as in the case of Freedom and Release Release) sound like the band had written one of their usual side-length tracks and then trimmed the climatic portions of it. The band simply has no space to breathe - there's several tracks where Steve Howe seems to be soloing constantly, simply because there's no other way to cram his ideas into the running time of a track.

It doesn't help that the compositions are also just a muddled step down from the crystal clarity of Going For the One. Don't Kill the Whale is amusing enough but forgettable, but the others lurch into self-parody all too regularly. (Has Jon Anderson ever sung anything as ridiculous as Arriving UFO?) Closing not-quite-epic On the Silent Wings of Freedom is the other album highlight, if only because it suggests what the band were still able to accomplish in a longer song format, even then it's hardly essential if you already have the albums from The Yes Album to Going For the One.

Tormato would end up being Yes' weakest album since Time and a Word or the self-titled debut, but at least those two albums showcased a band who were growing into their prime. Tormato, by contrast, captured the group in decline. That said, there's still material of interest here, and it's pretty evident that the band were already looking into adopting more modern synthesisers and production techniques, which at least indicates an attempt to recalibrate their sound with changing times, even if some of the novel technologies they play with here have ended up dating a little poorly.