Yes - Heaven and Earth (2014)

I always found Howe immensely charming from watching interviews. Whenever I watch one of those Yes or general prog documentaries, I always want him to get more screen time.

I think there are some serious class and North-South issues in Yes and there always have been.

anderson delivered milk as a boy in lancashire iirc

I find it funny when Anderson talked about the class divide because he just seems like a guy from another planet. Wakeman has always had that affable bloke thing. Bruford in old footage sounds astonishingly posh, he seems to have lost that a bit.

Not that there's anything wrong with posh mannerisms.

wiat tony kaye didn't play on 90125? I didn't realize that. He only joined after the album was done?

oh just read up on it. what a mess.

Another clip up this morning.

whole album leaked

so far it just sounds kind of wimpy and generic.

this is not a good album

I'm not gonna seek out a DL - I'll wait for it to hit Spotify/Rdio.

you aren't missing anything. believe again is the best track on here. imagine a whole album of. . . 'the man you always wanted me to be' or 'it will be a good day'. a little of that is fine, 60 minutes is really , really dull. this reminds me of what I imagine a new Styx or Kansas album sounds like.

subway walls is also alright but it's no Into the Storm

I think there are some serious class and North-South issues in Yes and there always have been.

― Three Word Username, Friday, June 20, 2014 12:34 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If somebody could enlighten a yank on this I'm curious.

Going back a bit...I've had a few pops so excuse the effusiveness.

I've spent the last several days digging into Fly From Here. Honestly, it's a really, really good record.

The suite is, at it's worst, very listenable. Part 1 is as good as anything they've jammed on for a really long time, full of classic Trevor Horn groove transpositions and Squire counterpoint. Madman Across the Airfield is a total jam. And yes, Into the Storm is Tempus Fugit-level good – a Squire jam that transcends.

Benoit may not be much as a Jon imitator but he does an excellent Trevor. Actually, if FFH does anything, it's that it takes Trevor Horn from a somewhat aberrational stopgap role in Yes (replacing Jon for one record, producing another 1 1/2) to being one of the core players in the Yes story – where Drama and 90125/Big Generator left you feeling like he was transplanted into and self-consciously dragging the band into the modern world respectively, FFH recasts him as one of the key composers and aestheticians in the band's history.

Ok, back to the new one...all I can add is that Believe Again, if nothing else, is a nice sequel and a bit of an earworm. And it may be nothing else.

Wow. Listening to all of "Believe Again" now. This could be anyone - literally. Howe's signature sound is nowhere here, Downes keys sound like tinny plug-ins. Dull mix. smdh.

This album is awful.

I dunno – that opening riff with the volume pedal dynamics sounds like pure Steve Howe to me. It's a really nice little riff.

That said, this wouldn't be the first time Yes seemed like they got their act together (Going for the One) only to piss it away almost immediately (Tormato).

The implication being Yes didn't have their act together on Relayer?

I was going to say...

well, GFTO came after a 3-year layoff which was rather significant at the time. compare to say ELP's Works, Vol. 1 - Yes definitely seemed to still have it going for them, hell GFTO even hit #1 for a brief period. but that's besides the point...

I d/led the leak out of curiosity, it's almost hilariously trite - there are moments where you think "oh yeah that's Squire" or "that definitely sounds like Steve Howe" but man, this is so fluffed up and amounts to so little. there were some parts I dug at first listen because they were kinda catchy but it sounds like this takes the sort of anthemic AOR of "Walls" from Talk and neuters it even further. even though Anil Prasad tends to be quite opinionated sometimes I think he's on the money with this one...the critics are going to savage this.

boring boring boring boring. deadly dull. maybe their most boring record, it doesn't even fail in spectacularly bad ways like Talk or Tormato, it just sit there. completely unnecessary and irrelevant; makes FFH sound like Fragile.

"If somebody could enlighten a yank on this I'm curious."

Bruford, Howe, and Wakeman all from old money around London and went to fancy schools, Squire came from no money but went to fancy schools because of his boy sopranism, Anderson a milkman's boy from the North. Bruford and Anderson have both gone on record as saying that accent and education have played a large role in the tension in the Yes formations throughout the years ("These three-way fights with Chris and Jon where none of us could understand each other"), with Bruford (the fanciest of them all in terms of background) having over the years come more and more around to Anderson's way of seeing things.

to be positive, I do like "Step Beyond" - it's maybe the dinkiest song they've ever come up with, with those doodly-diddly-doodly-doo keyboards and all, but the vocals are nice

this really does sound like Jon Davison and four corpses. cripes.

at the same time the melodies are so agreeable that it's hard to actively dislike. hell if the tempos had been kicked up a few notches and had Squire/Howe bothered to show up this may actually be alright. though any goodwill I may have runs out right when "In a World Of Our Own" shows up - Chris Squire wrote this????

I tried to give it a second listen but just couldn't. Doing that would just turn me off from listening to any Yes for a long time. This is why I avoid "Tormato" - which I now have to rank high above this beige, lifeless lump of sad haha.
Have never listened to "The Ladder" or "Talk" ( don't ever plan to) but I can't imagine they're as goofy as this.

Thanks for the explanation TWU, i never realized that.

xp - you at least need to hear "Homeworld" off The Ladder - IMO one of their greatest songs and one of the few post-Drama tunes that matches up with their classics. To be honest I never minded Tormato much - it's goofy as hell, but the band clearly still had their chops, and there's still some energy (albeit misguided in places). It's not great but sadly it's better than a lot of what came after.

I fucking LOVE Tormato! Never understood the dislike. It's a really fun album.

"homeworld" is awesome and so is "new languages"

first impression with this new one is it sounds like squire white downes and howe. the tempos are sloooooooooww. hard to hear this yet as yes (more like starcastle rehearsals) until "to ascend"

like i wish there was as much proggy intricacy and intensity in this as there is in like owen pallet's "riverbed"

but it picks up a little in the second half for sure after that sloooooooooow beginning

After my immensely fruitful return to Topographic Oceans, I returned to Going For The One.
I had always thought it was very overrated but the consistent praise of "Awaken" by fans made me think I was probably missing something; since I love the Yes epics so much, I couldn't resist going back.

I had indeed underestimated GFTO. There is a lot of detail going on in the album that I never picked up before.
"Awaken" is easily the best thing on it, those "master of images" parts where it sounds like you are rising into heaven are incredible; the watery ending is gorgeous too.
The other tracks have a number of atmospheric and powerful moments, appealingly odd touches in some of the lyrics too.

I still feel some of the songs aren't quite all they could have been. Maybe the warm-up section of "Awaken" is too long.
I think the chorus of "Wonderous Stories" is the weakest part, it breaks up the hypnotic mystery of the rest of the song.
Probably a few other bits could have been different too but the examples above are the only things that really stuck out.

But still, wow, I can't believe I missed so much of the great stuff on the album first time around.

I just found out the other day that Anderson guested on a Glass Hammer album.

Doubt I'll ever get Heaven And Earth. I've still to get 13 Yes albums and piles of solo albums I'd prefer.

Glad to read you've come around to GFTO! I don't understand why some hear bad production on this. I think it's one of their most majestic and -except maybe for the title track which can border on the claustrophobic (though I love it!) - expansive sounding productions. "Tormato", for me, is pretty much ruined by its tinny mix and cluttered production.

GFTO always sounds like it needs a touch more treble to my ears.

Tormato has some good songs on it, it's an admirable Failure. So, for that matter, is Union. I rank both of them above this, because at least they aren't this dull.

Davidson is the least of the problems on the record. And since Downes wrote one of the only half-good songs here, I think the problem must be with squire and howe now; they soundlike they just phoned these compositions in, and no-one seems to have put much thought into arranging anything. get trevor horn back and let him and downes write the next album, if you must make another one.

After my immensely fruitful return to Topographic Oceans, I returned to Going For The One.
I had always thought it was very overrated but the consistent praise of "Awaken" by fans made me think I was probably missing something; since I love the Yes epics so much, I couldn't resist going back.

I had indeed underestimated GFTO. There is a lot of detail going on in the album that I never picked up before.
"Awaken" is easily the best thing on it, those "master of images" parts where it sounds like you are rising into heaven are incredible; the watery ending is gorgeous too.
The other tracks have a number of atmospheric and powerful moments, appealingly odd touches in some of the lyrics too.

I still feel some of the songs aren't quite all they could have been. Maybe the warm-up section of "Awaken" is too long.
I think the chorus of "Wonderous Stories" is the weakest part, it breaks up the hypnotic mystery of the rest of the song.
Probably a few other bits could have been different too but the examples above are the only things that really stuck out.

But still, wow, I can't believe I missed so much of the great stuff on the album first time around.

akm otm -- there's nothing here a fraction as dynamic as say "life on a film set," not on first listen at least

The above clip where Squire is using a Jazz Bass should be required watching for any weenie who does not understand that "Squire's new thing" was alays just Motown licks with new roundwound strings on a Rickenbacker. With the Jazz, he just sounds like a very good, somewhat aggressive player, not the mythical lead bassist people talk about when they don't know what they're talking about.

I misjudged Fly From Here- I'm listening to it again more or less for the first time since it came out. It's pretty decent, with alot more life and a more punchy production job than I originally gave it credit for.

That said, I've not spun the new one yet.

I fucking LOVE Tormato! Never understood the dislike. It's a really fun album.

Tormato is a frustrating record. For every moment that is potentially classic about it—the opening section to "Future Times," the blistering riff in "Release Release," the whole of "On the Silent Wings of Freedom"—there are two or three other things that drag it down – the blech "Rejoice" conclusion to "Future Times," the WTF of the drum solo and audience applause(!!!) in the middle of "Release Release," the straight-up oddness of things like "Circus of Heaven" and "Arriving UFO" (the sequence of which pretty much tanks side 2). Topped off by a production/mix which sounds like it was done in a dingy broom closet.

Which again, just makes me think that, for all their collective talent and abilities, these guys have a hard time holding things together for very long.

A lot of people hate "Circus Of Heaven" And find it sickeningly sentimental, I love it, actually I adore it. I used to sing it when I went walking in the fields, haha.

I don't remember most of the songs by name, a lot of the bonus tracks were amazing, some of which are demos of songs that got fleshed out on Anderson's solo album Song Of Seven.

In the Classic Artists:Yes documentary, they said that the "concept" is of the members not trying to make a focused whole. The image on the back cover of them all looking in a different direction is intentional.

I think they just wanted to bang out an album, and while I don't think that approach is the best thing for them, I can understand why they'd do that after all those intensely focused albums.
But I think the energy and fun shows, it's an album I feel good about putting on.

The weird thing about the lousy sound on Tormato is that I think the individual instruments (except for Wakeman's angry clarinet wasps) sound really good, but the whole of it is lousy. In a sense, Future Times/Rejoice is the album in a nutshell -- the amazing opening, some of the best Chris Squire playing, ever gets followed by a weird (but not bad) Anderson New Age number which Squire completely sabotages with his shit overplaying.

Also the drum solo and applause of Release Release is, I think, in some way related to the lyrics which seem to be about how prog needs to borrow punk's intensity and power but leave off that nasty nihilism.

At Fopp today I bought Yes, Time And A Word, Yessongs, Drama and 90125.

Was surprised to see there was a Yes album collection with Going For The One, Tormato, Drama, 90125 and Big Generator.
I'm really delighted by these super cheap album collections, I bought a Mahavishnu Orchestra one recently and today I splashed out on Judas Priest, Sisters Of Mercy and Incredible String Band collections. The only thing that stopped me buying the two Tangerine Dream Virgin collections is that the albums are crammed across different discs instead of each album getting its own disc, that really bugs me when that happens.
Wish there was more of these for prog bands, so many prolific bands would really benefit from them.

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.