Yes - Heaven and Earth (2014)

The Arkestra put their all into it. These guys are going through the motions.

i've seen both kill it. can't rank them

I saw Yes last summer or year before. They were great, especially Howe.

after listening to the way ELP have sounded ever since that terrible 1992 it makes me glad that Yes at least never was that bad. scouring Youtube Yes sounds alternately tired/unable to keep up (like ELP they wrote compositions that could really only be played by someone at the peak of their powers) and surprisingly nimble, though obviously they're not the dudes they were in the mid-70's.

I'm weirdly excited for this album - Fly from Here had the spectre of "you know a lot of this music was written like, 30 years ago?", so basically...you were hoping it was somewhat like Drama, though obviously it wasn't gonna be as good, and Drama is a little iffy to some. I like the idea of new Yes music, especially with Jon Davison contributing a lot, as Davison does good work with Glass Hammer and isn't like 120 years old. so there's that!!

there were really only a few things on FFH that were that old (they were the best things on the album though). I love Drama, and I really liked FFH. Too bad Horn isn't around again but I'm cautiously optimistic about this.

me too. roy thomas baker is no slouch

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/geoff-downes-yes-new-album/

https://soundcloud.com/thecheezmusic/01-believe-again-radio-rip

they wrote compositions that could really only be played by someone at the peak of their powers

OTM, which is perhaps why I greatly prefer the more pastoral approach of Genesis. It's the arrangement as much as the playing, and while the Genesis guys (or at least Phil and Steve and Tony) are no slouches, they know how/when to tone it down. Yes is pretty much non-stop YES!!!!!!!

it got taken down :( but the initial reviews don't sound too promising.

if Yes knew how to "tone it down" they'd be a totally different band.

anyway, since the preview song is down here's a tune from a modern band called Druckfarben, that definitely sounds a lot like classic Yes. guitarist definitely has the Steve Howe thing down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpIsldiIqI

i saw a spock's beard bumper sticker on a suburu wagon, dad dropping his kid off at the jr high school a block from my house

A little voice inside my head said "don't look back, you can never look back."

Well, yeah

damn, that druckfarben song sounds more like yes than the new "yes" song does. thanks for the tip!

Anil Prasad (of Innerviews) got an advance copy of this and he absolutely savaged it. Apparently it's the worst Yes album in the history of Yes and that is fucking saying something.

whoa

it's hard to imagine a worse yes album than talk or open your eyes

where is this review?

its just on facebook. there's a long thread about it but here's what he has to say about it:

"This is an embarrassing, appalling intergalactic explosive turd of an album. It is a complete waste of electricity and hard drive space. Everyone involved should be utterly ashamed of themselves. And you can quote me."

"FFH was a good album. Lots of enjoyable points. Everything about this album is terrible. I'm surprised the production wasn't better. It's third-rate amateur stuff."

"This is coming from someone that knows every note of every Yes album, including the terrible ones. This is the lowest point in the band's history. It is time to at least stop making albums. They can float away into Kansas-like repertoire irrelevancy."

"Yes is over. Face it."

"I don't understand what Steve's contribution to this album is. He's the one guy that has some standards."

"It is clear Yes is nothing without the "Napoleon" presence of an Anderson or Horn -- absolutely nothing. Just a bunch of rudderless players who wouldn't know a good song, arrangement or production if it fell on their heads from the sky."

"Yes will continue until the last man is standing. As Sean Tonar says "you can't stop them." As long as one of them is alive they will continue in a stagnant, undignified state. Maybe it'll be four cover band musicians plus Tony Kaye in 10 years. Or robots. Mustn't forget about robots. Anderbot, Rebootford, Wakedroid, Hotswap."

"Open your eyes is much better, yes. I am serious. Believe it."

"The real outrage will occur when this album is released or leaked. It will be a critical bloodbath. Any reviewer that has anything good to say about it will do so because they are afraid to offend the record company taking out full page ads in their magazines."

"The songs are barely songs. They're a loose assemblage of bits and parts all stitched together. There is no coherence or unity in the writing and execution. There are poorly-conceived little instrumental interludes grafted in here and there. The general production/mix of the album is below Yes standards as well. It's a real shock after Fly From Here, which "sounded" great. And it would of course, with Horn behind it."

All this makes it sound like it's some kind of lo-fi avant garde genius.

but will it be better than lulu?

no

over on progressive ears, anil says

"I must apologize to you all.

"I really didn't mean to be so nice when I commented about the album."

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum/showthread.php/8375-New-YES-album-quot-Heaven-And-Earth-quot-due-July-8-U-S-Summer-tour/page45

interest piqued!

Really though, these guys should just stop.

it's never enough until your heart stops beating. the deeper you get, the sweeter the pain. don't give up the game

that's too bad. FFH was excellent, and I don't think the band gave it the airing it deserved, their last big tour after it was a retrospective cover tour (which was good, but still). That would have been a high point to have gone out on.

i'm gonna wait till i hear it. lots of people still say 'the ladder' sucks and that's my second favorite since 'drama'

I really liked Fly From Here so I had decent hopes for this one but, wow, that's... not a good sign. Although I'm oddly anticipating it in a trainwreck kind of way now.

At their worst Yes are terminally boring. I could see this being boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuI2fev8omE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xhskp7YIic

Hmm, "Believe Again" doesn't sound that terrible.

The songs are barely songs. They're a loose assemblage of bits and parts all stitched together. There is no coherence or unity in the writing and execution.

U.Yes Maple

I agree that the sample doesn't seem so bad but remember that A) this song is over eight minutes long, and B) that chorus sounds really, really limp

It did take a while to remember that it wasn't Jon Anderson singing. New Jon's voice is even more ridiculous than old Jon.

lyrics are just as terrible too

New Jon is an awful singer. He's faking on Anderson by trying to come off "gentle" and "sweet", and it sounds really lame. Jon Anderson has a high and powerful voice, this guy is trying to sound like an angel child and failing.

yeah I preferred Benoit's work on the last album. I know he wasn't a good live singer at all but his work on the record is alright

I never heard Benoit and I don't know how this new singer usually sounds but I find it really unsettling when a singer tries to sound like someone else. Getting a singer with some of the same key virtues makes sense, but trying to copy is just really not nice.

he does clearly seem to be emulating Jon Anderson or what he thinks Anderson would be doing if he were still around. I think he sounds good with Glass Hammer (and I was never distracted that much by his similarity to Anderson) and his songwriting was fine from what I could remember but I don't feel like he's doing heavy lifting songwriting-wise there. meanwhile according to Wikipedia he's the primary guy on here:

1. "Believe Again" Jon Davison, Steve Howe
2. "The Game" Chris Squire, Davison, Gerard Johnson
3. "Step Beyond" Howe, Davison
4. "To Ascend" Davison, Alan White
5. "In a World of Our Own" Davison, Squire
6. "Light of the Ages" Davison
7. "It Was All We Knew" Howe
8. "Subway Walls" Davison, Geoff Downes

I think this kind of says it all, Yes have always felt pretty dysfunctional but having your new guy (who made the band because of his uncanny resemblance to the old guy) write more than twice as many songs as any other member seems extra bizarre

I'll probably do the same with this as I did with the last one. Listen to it once, and then return to the classics.

They couldn't call up a better vocalist from the tribute band bush leagues?

It's not that he wrote twice as many songs as the others but that he collaborated with the other guys individually.

Isn't that lyrics?

Can I just say - I LOVE the sound of this clip. I am a big Geoff Downes fan.

Went ahead and bought the track on iTunes.

It is delightful imo.

Reminds me of the Thai cop in Only God Forgives.

It's not that he wrote twice as many songs as the others but that he collaborated with the other guys individually.

― timellison, Friday, June 13, 2014 11:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isn't that lyrics?

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, June 14, 2014 1:07 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

4. "To Ascend" Davison, Alan White

http://www.woundedbird.com/white_alan/8167.jpg

for context, glass hammer is the band people who consider dream theater worthy of serious consideration like to pick on.

i like glass hammer but have never been able to hear the appeal of dream theater. glass hammer isn't chopsy so much as into oxbridge mystical atmospherics (they have two (!) 'lord of the rings' concept albums, and one about c.s. lewis' 'perelandra' series), and their last four or five albums are to yes what the second and third feelies albums are to the velvet underground

if he's just writing lyrics then I guess that's understandable, still kinda weird that these dudes aren't really writing together anymore

Glass Hammer are definitely an easy band to pick on but I really enjoy them; they're not all that original but they are a lot of fun, and honestly I'd much rather see them live right now than this incarnation of Yes. They're one of the few bands that seems to get better with every release.

definitely. i wish that for every 1000 bands that want to sound like the platonic ideal of punk rock, there was at least one band like glass hammer and starcastle that wants to sound like yes. the (listening) world would be a much better place

best thing i've read all morning -- "this album does well what love beach did badly"

hey, Love Beach was alright! I mean, this certainly isn't good, but....

fuck me if some of this album hasn't turned into kind of an earworm. . . the game, believe again, and it was all we knew, in particular. it was all we knew chugs around a bit like some late period REM song. It doesn't sound anything like Yes but I kind of like it.

i kinda agree with this - the songs do get stuck in your head. they're shockingly lethargic but the melodies do work. it's definitely very different.

You guys are true fans that you can actually listen to this more than a couple of times.

don't worry i'm going to stop pretty soon

hahaha!

Hate to derail the thread again with "Tormato" bits but I was digging around and found this : http://ultimateclassicrock.com/yes-tormato/

One of the interesting reasons why that album doesn't sound as good as it could have. I still think Wakeman's Polymoogs helped kill it, though - and I love Wakeman.

well I'm doing the Quietus review, so I might as well search for the good

maybe this is damning with faint praise but i'm enjoying this when songs randomly pop up on a playlist with other new stuff (dead rider, black bananas, mastodon, bear in heaven, new eno/hyde, mike cooper, and comet control). the tempos i can handle in doses and the straight-edgy commitment to optimism is refreshing when i'm not expecting it. but the album in proper order straight through is still something i haven't been able to manage more than once, and i'm a sucker for this shit

Nothing I like about Yes appears to be evident on this album.

great review, frogbs! totally agree. really curious that they managed to deliver the goods on 'fly from here' without that experience seeming to impact this lethargic performance one bit

an interview with the new guy, how he got involved, what his role was in writing/recording, etc

http://music.allaccess.com/yes-singer-jon-juano-davison-jon-d-interview-talks-about-heaven-earth/

hah, didnt know it was up already! I have no clue when this thing actually releases. I've heard 3 different dates. I think that's the first real negative review I've posted up there, but I hope I got the point across that the songwriting is mostly fine; it's the incredibly slow tempos and lifeless performances that tank it. Sadly they edited a few bits out of it, my conclusion was supposed to be "buy a Glass Hammer album instead"

An incisive review, Nick. Shame about your being edited as it was good advice. Certainly the Glass Hammer comparison is inescapable with Jon Davison fronting this album. To that end, GH's 2010 album, IF, readily walks all over this one. I was less smitten by the other Glass Hammer releases with JD... or otherwise, I suppose.

Re. the speed, I'd heard it was Howe slowing the pace, rather than White. Their live sets have apparently improved somewhat but Heaven and Earth still falls victim to arthritic tempos.

'it was all we knew' is out and out unbearable. Subway walls is the only one with any life in it. Bummer

yeah I can pretty much recommend any Glass Hammer album from Lex Rex on (I like Chronometree a lot too, but I feel like you need to be really familiar with ELP's work to really get it), plus the two Druckfarben albums. there's really a lot of good prog still being released, it's kind of a shame that none of it gets even a quarter of the press that this lukewarm Yes album does.

hell the new morrissey album has better proggy moments on it than the new yes. besides glass hammer, motorpsycho has been on fire lately. having the dungen guy in the band hasn't hurt. 'the death defying unicorn' is better than most "classic" 70s symph prog i've heard, and is on par with the best yes, crimson, rush, camel, tull, etc. it is too bad not more people pay attention but i'm glad enough do to keep this stuff coming

I need to check out some more recent prog offerings, but this year's Gazpacho record is a good one. https://soundcloud.com/kscopemusic/sets/gazpacho-demon

I like the concept behind it a lot:

Demon is inspired by a conversation Thomas had with his father a few years ago where he spoke of a dark force moving through history. During the conversation his father recalled a business visit to Prague in the seventies where he visited the family of some of his hosts.

The family lived in an old apartment, recently renovated after a fire. In the debris, an old manuscript was found. The manuscript was written by a previous resident, for which no records existed other than that his rent had been pre-paid for many years.

Written over two years, the band have described Demon as the ‘most complicated and strange album Gazpacho has ever made’ and whether the manuscript is truly the work of an obsessed madman or an urban legend it has certainly provided the basis for an interesting twist on a concept album.

The manuscript contained various ramblings and diagrams which formed the basis of a diary, of sorts, of the man. He claimed to have discovered the source of what he called an evil presence in the world. This presence, ‘The Demon’, was an actual intelligent will, with no mercy and a desire for bad things to happen. The author wrote as if he had lived for thousands of years stalking this presence and the manuscript contains references to outdated branches of mathematics, pagan religions unknown to the present world and an eyewitness account of the bubonic plague. So crazed were the writings that the document was donated to the Strahov Library in Prague, where it was thought it would be of interest to students of psychiatry.

The thought of this mysterious figure that had lived through the ages, hunting the ‘Demon’, seemed like too good an idea not to write about. Thomas presented the idea to the band who were just as inspired by the story, and with Jan Henrik, he started writing the lyrics based on what they thought the manuscript would reveal, drawing inspiration from previously ‘discovered’ diaries and manifests.

The story is told in four parts, ending with ‘Death Room’ which are the last words of the unfinished manuscript written just before the disappearance of the unknown writer.

xp - you should link some good Motorpsycho here, that definitely sounds intriguing

'the death defying unicorn' is better than most "classic" 70s symph prog i've heard

This is something I've found myself more and more in agreement with, not so much this album (which I haven't heard) but that newer bands could pump out material of that quality. It sucks that this kind of music doesn't really have any money behind it anymore; I don't know how many groups could do something on the level of Close to the Edge, which apparently took hundreds of hours worth of takes and edits and rewrites to get as you hear it on the album (which I believe is what motivated Bruford to jump ship), but the talent is there. That said I've been shocked at how intricate and well-made a lot of post-80's prog is even though such bands are basically unknown.

not saying this is the best song on the album, but to keep this kind of relevant to the thread, around four minutes into this they bite "changes" from '90125'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXydZtoHq0E

(wobbler is another recent band that does this all pretty well, by the way. and again to stick to the thread -- 'sound mirror,' the latest album by syd arthur, the band opening for yes this tour, has some great stuff on it)

(sorry! the passage i'm talking about is around 2:45 into it, through a little past the three minute point)

sounds like they do it twice! definitely will be checking this band, I've always loved that style of drumming but have trouble getting into all-out metal.

I had heard the first Wobbler album a while back and my impression was that it was good but very much reminded me of "Tarkus". I think I was hung up at the time on how unoriginal it sounded but strangely nowadays this doesn't bother me at all about Glass Hammer (who sound unoriginal at first listen but once you get to know them, they really do have their own distinct style)

I think the majority of newer prog bands have a problem in that they are too reverent to their heroes, as if they place themselves beneath Yes and dislike the idea of a new band surpassing Close To The Edge.
The thing I like about metal is that they have a great deal of respect for the past but place no limits on their ambitions, not content to live in the shadows of other bands.
For me early Emperor, Immortal, Wolves In The Throne Room, Deathspell Omega and some Death (I'm sure I'll find much more eventually) pushes my symphonic prog buttons very satisfyingly, even if they aren't regarded as part of that tradition all the time.

Relatively mainstream bands like Mew, Battles, White Denim and Field Music have made some excellent prog but I feel the prog community hasn't embraced them because there hasn't been enough explicit pledging of allegiance to the older bands (despite the occasional favourable mention of these bands in interviews). But then Ruins are pure prog fanboys yet they never got the kind of coverage they deserve. But I confess I haven't bought Prog magazine in a couple of years and rarely visit Prog Archives.

I think Devil Doll's 90s albums Sacrilegium and Dies Irae are as good as any prog classics, but the vocals are likely to put off most(?) people. That guy somehow had incredible resources with orchestras, choirs and opera singers. Some of my all-time favourite music. A truly fascinating mixture of ingredients.

I've heard that Diagonal are excellent.

I saw Yes on the recent 3 album tour in Southend (can't believe I saw Yes in Southend, it's not 1969) and I have to admit I was surprised, and then blown away, by how good Jon Davison was.

last time i saw (1998? 99?) it was so vegas i've been afraid to go back. how was everyone else compared to davison?

diagonal has the right sounds and the right idea but nothing on either of their two albums i've heard has totally blown me away

they were really good last year with davison. won't be going this year though, too much of the same set and tix were almost twice as much (plus they aren't playing in SF, would have to go down to san jose).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_njJRAB9HGw

this was news to me, i found a nine year old thread about it but i think the statute has passed and now is a good time to imagine a world in which robert downey jr is the lead singer of yes

wow an opportunity to admit I have watched this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1crxmBTxRlM

Out today. On Spotify now.