THE YES ALBUM

Cheerful, spacey, pondering, "The Yes Album" is an essential chapter in Yes' discography.

Yes' third studio album finally is a contributor in Prog Rock's evolution, but even more importantly it will have an impact on the band itself. This album is one of the culminating peaks of the band, however they will be still many others that top this one.But this is the first album that defines the band's sound as we known it, so a listen to this one is absolutely essential for any Prog Rock fan.

A massive improvement is found here compared to the previous two albums: first of all, the musicianship is even more refined, especially Jon Anderson, who gives great performances in each one of these songs. Here, the concept of Progressive, as it is it's definition, expands compared to the modest experimentations of the debut and sophomore and debut LPs: the songs are much more stretched out, leading almost to the nine minute mark on two thirds of the album. The songwriting is still very melodic, as Yes will always be, but here it is almost always top-notch: all of the melodies are great, the structure of these songs is always epic regardless of their lengths. The wonderful alternation between the strong bass-lines, the soaring keyboard solos, and the spacey guitars, is always present, except for some Folk Rock parenthesis that pop up in many moments.

A science fiction theme is present on this album, like it is frequent for Progressive albums, not only in the lyrics of "Starship Trooper" but also in the music itself: at times, the sound is very wide and spacey, yet still very earthly. By listening to this LP you feel like you're about to take off in space, and you're in the spaceship already, waiting, . The lyrics however are more abstract than how they were on the first two albums, and without having necessarily a Sci-fi feeling to them: "Perpetual Change" has possibly the most interesting words, as they seem to play on the pessimistic points of view of nature compared to mankind. "Yours Is No Disgrace" also has interesting theme, once again focusing on mankind, the "Silly human race".

This six song LP is well structured, ranging from calm, Folkish moments to cheerful, yet complex ones. "Yours Is No Disgrace", "Perpetual Change" and "Starship Troopers" have similar flows one another, starting with a strong set of melodies, then toning down the mood a bit with a quiet piece, and then finishing once again strong. "Clap" and the huge hit "I've Seen All Good People" are more acoustic driven, especially the first one, which is a short instrumental recorded live with an acoustic guitar. "A Venture" is interesting and, despite its short length it has a good structure and a wonderful melody that makes it a really good song in par with all the other ones.

"The Yes Album" is an essential album in Yes' discography, for it was the first one to give to the band their sound. Enjoyable all the way through, if you haven't listened to it yet, fix that.

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