New Album and Tour dates - Live Music News and Review

YES releases new album, our man Ron Moses reviews it, and the band announces tour dates in USA and Europe:

(Check out the video release of the band's latest single in the attached video section.)

Seminal art rock band YES have been at it for nearly 5 decades, with a whole cavalcade of band members who have come and gone. When they were touring in the early 1990s, there was a band on tour called Yes, and a band that I saw in Boston called Anderson Buford Wakeman and Howe, four original members that was not called Yes. Dozens of band members have come and gone through the band’s history, but one thing has remained a constant, the band’s devotion to musical perfection, and an approach to compositional rock music that focuses on the artist forms more than radio ready songs.

The band has released a brand new album, Fly From Here, and is on tour this summer with fellow 70s art rockers, Styx. That tour continues for a few more weeks in the US, and then this fall Yes will be heading to Europe to perform on their own. We’ve consulted with our Yes expert, Ron Moses, and he has reviewed in great detail, the band’s latest album. This is Ron’s first piece with Live Music News and Review, and his attention to detail and knowledge of the band is unparalleled.

Ron Moses: Well, there's a new Yes album out for 2011, and of course the first question that comes to your mind is: What do I think of it, as a long standing fan of the band?

I’m glad that you asked. The short answer is:I love it! It's the most Yes-like thing they've done since the end of the classic era. I enjoyed their previous release, the orchestra-driven Magnification, simply because the majority of it was actually listenable, which was a pleasant surprise. But Fly From Here feels way more like an authentic Yes album; more specifically it sounds a lot like the follow-up to 1980's Drama (with good reason, as we'll soon learn). So if you liked that album, I think you'll like this.

Now on to the very long answer, which you may skip if you have a life...

The lineup is Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, Geoff Downes (replacing Oliver Wakeman, who participated in the recording sessions but left the band before the album was completed), and new vocalist Benoit David. David is no Jon Anderson, but his voice works quite well with this material. He's certainly a step up from their previous non-Jon vocalist, Trevor Horn (who produced and co-wrote much of the material on Fly From Here). There are many times throughout the album where I forget I'm not listening to Jon Anderson, which is about as high a compliment as I can pay the guy.

The other members of the band sound better than they have in years. Squire's bass sounds huger than ever, even going so far as to pull out a few nostalgic sounds from the Tormato days. Steve Howe wakes up after a lengthy slumber to bless the album with the kind of aggressive, angular guitar playing we haven't heard from him in I-don't-know-how-long. After the past few tours I wasn't convinced he was able to play this fast anymore. Alan White's drumming is as reliable as ever, naturally. As for the keys, there are a lot of them, but it's difficult to know whether it's Wakeman or Downes playing them at any given time. Regardless, the keyboard work is excellent, never getting in the way of the guitar or vocals, but very often playing a defining role without the entire affair turning into a "keyboard album."

Ironically, most of the material here was written by former Buggles (and short-term Yes members for the Drama album) Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn (which seems to me like a promising thing in that authentic Yes music apparently doesn't have to be written by Anderson/Howe/Squire). Yes performed an embryonic version of "Fly From Here" during the Drama tour (available on the The Word Is Live box set), and several of the other tracks here are based on things that were written for the planned follow-up to that album, or for a never-realized Buggles album. This has led some on the Internet to decry Fly From Here as "a Buggles album with the name Yes slapped on it," but I've heard The Age Of Plastic and it doesn't sound like this. The Buggles material leaned much more in a quirky Thomas Dolby direction. This sounds entirely like Yes to my ears, so I don't really care where it came from if it's this good.

The album starts out with the extended "Fly From Here" suite, which like all Yes suites is a loose collection of wildly varied ideas with multiple variations on each theme tying them all together. It's much more cohesive than any of their recent attempts to break the 20-minute mark, in part due to a fine overture that introduces each of the major themes in turn without sounding at all disjointed. Each section that follows has its own distinct flavor, and each could easily stand alone as its own song. But strung together they make for an especially satisfying listen. It reminds me of a Steve Howe interview I saw once, where he commented that one of the reasons Yes flourished once he and Rick Wakeman completed the classic lineup is that it's not enough to have good ideas -- you need musicians with the ability to take those ideas and develop them into something larger and even more expressive. That is entirely apparent here, as each new theme is introduced and then spun off into a whole new landscape, calling back to previous sections while foreshadowing latter movements as well. I'll admit it didn't fully gel with me for the first few listens, but neither did "Close To The Edge" or anything on Tales From Topographic Oceans, so it's par for the course as far as Yes music is concerned.

Unfortunately, Fly From Here suffers its one and only stumble on the next track, with Chris Squire's completely out-of-place "The Man You Want Me To Be." Squire takes his second lead vocal ever on a Yes album (after

Magnification's far superior "Can You Imagine") but the novelty is not enough to make this track worth sitting through. A plain vanilla love song of such little distinction has no place on such an otherwise strong and adventurous album. Skip it.

Horn and Downes bring things back to high form with "Life On A Film Set." The first half of the tune is a storm of moody intensity, which then gives way to an almost jaunty romp that continually threatens to drop back into the darkness of the opening segment. It's a nicely balanced track with lots to keep the ear engaged.

Next up, Howe brings us "Hour Of Need," easily one of his strongest tracks in years. This downright lovely tune features Howe's mandolin up front and center, while he and David take a duet on the vocal part. While Howe is not generally recognized for his vocal skills, it's quite nice to hear him this prominently on a Yes album again. The Japanese release of the CD includes an extended version of this track that features an unnecessary opening extravaganza, but closes with an instrumental jam that I miss on the album version. All things considered, they were probably right to go with the shorter version.

It wouldn't be a Yes album without a solo guitar track from Steve Howe, and I think "Solitaire" might be my favorite thing he's done since "Clap". It's not overly-showy, but it does showcase all the little things we love about Howe's playing.

The album closes with the energetic "Into The Storm," a track that reminds me somewhat of the bastard love-child of Tormato's "On The Silent Wings Of Freedom" and "Release Release." It's essentially a straightforward rocker with great three-part harmonies and a very cool off-tempo bridge. It closes with a swinging call-back to the opening suite, further contributing to the album's sense of cohesion. I especially love the way the vocals sound on this track... go back and compare how Trevor Horn produced the vocals on 90125 to how he presents them here. Without question I prefer this more organic sound to that more commercial, over-compressed plastic sound.

The one thing I take away from this album is that, at this point in time, Yes is better off without Jon Anderson. Blasphemy! Hey, listen... Jon Anderson has written and performed scores of amazing songs that will be with me for the rest of my life. M

y respect for his musicianship is deep indeed. But as the years have gone by, his sensibilities have grown more New-Agey, his compositions more ethereal. Less sharp, more distance. It's the kind of writing that takes an album that might have been exciting and bold, like The Ladder or Magnification, and sands off all the corners. The result is certainly Yes-like, but in a sleepy sort of way. Not entirely satisfying.

Downes and Horn, and to an equal degree Howe, have put together an excellent Yes album. Skip Chris Squire's track and you have an album that stands up quite well side-by-side with Drama. Listen to them consecutively and it's almost like no time has passed at all.

4 stars out of 5.

RON MOSES

(Check out the video release of the band's latest single in the attached video section.)

Europe Fall/Winter 2011

DATE

LOCATION

VENUE

TICKETS

11/8

Cambridge, UK

Corn Exchange