I've always thought that in spite of all the criticism leveled at Yes' Union, it's a fairly decent album. But more than that, I've always thought that the ABWH material on there is so good, and that with a different production approach it could have made up a 2nd ABWH album which was better than the first - which in itself was pretty good for what it was. A song like Silent Talking really took the Yes sound in a new, exciting and pretty progressive direction - without rehashing too much 70s stuff.
So I was very excited to finally lay my hands on The Perfect Union, which contains the earlier versions of the ABWH material that I believe was released on a ltd ed promo meant for the Japanese vendors or something like that. These versions are much more vibrant than the ones on Union, with Steve Howe more upfront in the mix and generally more present, and with a bit more grit to the rhythm section. A song like Take the Water to the Mountain comes to life in a pretty amazing way, with lots of great soloing from Steve, a killer, earth-shaking bass tone from Tony and some great harmonizing between Jon and Chris at the end.
Opinions? Do those promo songs bear witness to a pretty great album that could've been?
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