Too late.Originally Posted by Progatron
It's weird, with all the bad stuff happening in the world, the most depressing thing for me right now is how dreary this Yes album is shaping up to be. I already think "Dare to Know" is turgid and uninteresting, and it just sounds like the rest isn't much better.
"Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)
I went back and looked at the review again, and, uh, yeah. If you're rambling on about the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Happy Days, chances are you're more concerned with being witty than actually reviewing the music.
The weekend comes. My cycle hums, ready to race to you.
"It was a cruel song, but fair."-Roger Waters
Wow, I've just listened to Fly From Here - Return Trip, I had no idea that the Drama formation released another album. This sounds great! Love Trevor Horn vocals. And Chris Squire 2nd vocals are a must.
* Hour of Need has some Concierto de Aranjuez licks. It's all good.
The limited edition looks like a real nice package:
I couldn't agree more. I think it's the best Yes release since Drama itself.
FFH 1 (with Benoit David)
A track by track review has been posted...
Having listened to the album once through now, one thing I will comment at this point is that this listener can certainly tell that Steve Howe produced the record. His vox, background and lead, along with his guitar parts feature more prominently in the mix, for good or ill I imagine depending on one’s opinion of his voice. Need to listen more times through to do a more thorough comparison and contrast to other Yes records. The only other thought I had upon first listen is that I don’t think this album is as strong as what we hear on From a Page, the most recent Yes release. This impression might change and I recognize one release is significantly longer than the other.
I did the preorder thing with this one. However, physical copies have been delayed until October 15th(I think) and so I won't receive my copy until sometime after that. I'm looking forward to it.
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
Yep, got the message from Amazon of the new shipping date - October 15th. Still much better than delays with vinyl releases ...
"Confusion Will Be My Epitaph"
It's available on HDtracks now.
Wow, OK... I'll definitely be giving this one another listen. The mix is amazing. The lyrics are pretty much what you'd get if someone trained an AI to generate Yes lyrics (although Mystery Tour is kind of fun). It's definitely refreshing to hear a bunch of solos throughout the album. I was expecting to hate it (like Heaven & Earth) so I need some time to process this...
Yes, 15 October for CD versions, in the US. Release elsewhere in the world is still today. The 2LP release has been delayed until 17 Dec in the US.
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
I listened, and posted a review on Facebook. Sharing it here too.
Alright. The new Yes album. I had honestly expected to hate it as much as I did Heaven & Earth, but I really don't. There's a lot of little things to gripe about, and obviously it doen't have any of the production sheen of Fly From Here. But you know what? It sounds like a Yes album. Albeit a Davison-led Yes, but yep, it is Yes. And by golly, I kinda like it!
So, let's get the negatives out of the way first. The production. Howe did it. It's better than Heaven&Earth, but it would take a monkey behind the console to do worse than that, so that's not saying much. Parts of the production are really nice: The orchestra is very well integrated into the band sound, which is honestly a rare thing to hear. And there's clarity and space to most of the mix. The drums are still a little weak-sounding and too reverby, considering how busy the soundstage is in most of the songs. And my main gripe about the production is that the vocals - just like on H&E - sound too rough. An important job for the mix engineer is to glue vocals together and give them a unified sound and a clearly defined place in the mix, and I just don't feel that that's happened in many places here. Harmonies sometimes don't really gel, sonically, and there's a hollowness, perhaps a lack of mid-warmth, in a lot of the vocals.
I am also not super-fond of some of the guitar sounds. The leads are fine - too clean for my personal taste but that's definitely Howe's sound these days. But when he does crunchier stuff, power chords and such, there's no real weight or definition to the guitars.
So that's that. Then there is of course the fact that I have not been huge fan of Davison's voice or the way he makes melodies, but I am getting past that and accept his stuff as part of the new Yes sound. Also, he just does a much better job here than on H&E.
But the songs: Everyone's already heard The Ice Bridge. I've been living with it for a long time now, and I just plain like it. It's a cool little prog-pop tune, and I love how in charge Downes is of the sonic profile on this song. And Billy's bassline here really is like an umbilical cord to Chris' Great Bass Spirit on the Sky. This song was a good choice for a single and good choice for album opener. A bit overlong, yes, but I forgive that.
Dare to Know, however, is one of my least favorite songs on the album, and was a bad single choice. An all-out Howe compostition, it's full of those - excuse the term - infantile melodic ideas that Howe comes up with at his worst. The actual songs parts of the tune are not terrible, but too much time is given to Howe's scale-exercise guitar parts. And the drums here are drowned in reverb, which robs the song of momentum it badly needs. This is also a song where the orchestra gets a little overpowering and schmaltzy. Next, please!
Sherwood and Davison's Minus the Man is SO much better. Opening with some touching orchestra/guitar interaction, it then moves into verses where both Sherwood and Davison play to their strengths and temper each other's tendencies to be overly complicated. I really like the melodic ideas here, and the underpinning progressions sound genuinely Yes-y. Also, the orchestra is perfectly integrated here. This sounds a bit like the best parts of say Magnification or The Ladder. Howe sounds more like his old self here too. Sherwood knows how to arrange things so that they ebb and flow, and here he really puts that to the song's advantage.
Leave Well Alone is another Howe tune, but thankfully here he has upped his game. After a decent but slightly generic intro with orchestra and electric guitar, the songs shifts into a very pretty acoustic verse with a nice, almost church-like vocal melody, that then alternates with busier band sections, some nice basslines from Billy and some very Yes-y vocal harmonies. At times this sounds like it could have fit on Tormato if you added some widdly Poly-Moog. And at this point in Yes' career that's a compliment, just to make that clear.
A drawback here, though, is that Howe eventually falls back into his scale-exercise guitar stuff. He really needs to lay off that.
The songs ends with something that the Yes of old could have turned into a real climax - a strummed guitar and expansive organ chords, just waiting for that soaring guitar solo to come and fly over them. But the band never really gets going, and the guitar solo falls short of any soaringness. (You know, Steve, that gain knob does go further than 2 and a half.) Too bad. But definitely a song with some very nice sections.
The Western Edge is another Sheerwood/Davison tune. I like the title, it conjures up visions of Close to the Edge. This is the tune where Howe FINALLY starts finding his old Yes sound, with some beautiful, high-pitched slide melodies. Compositionally this feels very much like a Sherwood-dominated tune, with his sometimes confusing, start-stop-start structure. It think a slightly more linear approach in the beginning would have served the melodic contents better, but overall I really like this tune too. Downes does very nice work here, with some mellotron counter-melodies and spacey moog lines. There are times when this song REALLY takes off in that good old-fashioned Yes style, where you just feel that the whole thing explodes into space - when the chorus of "Along the Western Edge" comes in accompanied by Howe's "Soon"-like guitar ... ah, THAT is what Yes is all about!
We go from strength to strength with Future Memories, a Davison-penned tune that is a little folk-prog gem. It almost reminds me of the gentlest moments of Wobbler. Some of Davison's chord voicings here are downright gorgeous, and Billy provides very tasteful backing, while Howe spices things up just enough. Quite beautiful.
Unfortunately, Howe's Music to My Ears is not music to my ears, and a waste of 4:39 minutes. This should have been put on the silly bonus disc, it's got nothing to do with Yes music.
Downes and Davison wrote A Living Island, which ends the main disc. Thankfully, it's a pretty fantastic tune. It starts with a nice little acoustic guitar intro, before it moves onto a verse that is like Bruce Hornsby meets Yes (and I love Hornsby and consider him pretty proggy). I absolutely love this tune, it's catchy, touching and very lovingly executed. Downes does his best work on the album here, choosing textures and voicings carefully. There's also some nifty work on vocal arrangements here. The song also builds to a beautiful climax with intertwining vocal and guitar lines, like only Yes can do it.
So there you go. The Quest really surprised me. Gripes aside, it's actually a very strong album, considering the state of Yes in the 21st century. I considered Fly From Here to be a shockingly good album, not least because of Horn's fantastic production. But the thing about Fly From Here is that it's really only the "Buggles material" that makes it great. The other songs, with the exception of Into the Storm, are really not great, and so the album really only succeeds on the merit of the FFH suite.
I would venture to say that The Quest, while several steps down production-wise, and while not having any cohesive epic masterpieces like the FFH suite, is actually a more even album, with a sound that more accurately represents what Yes is - at its best - in the current era. I will still hold FFH as my favorite "modern" Yes album, not least because of all its J.G. Ballard references, but The Quest comes surprisingly close - and I never expected to say that. If I make a playlist of the album without Dare to Know and Music to My Ears, I will actually have a brand new Yes album that I will enjoy listening to. Who'd have thunk??
I have one more thing to say: Some folks target Alan White for his drumming on this album. I disagree. I actually think his drumming is very appropriate for this new, sort of folksy take on Yes music, and I think his playing is elegant and in the pocket. The problem with the drums is really the production - too much reverb and too little punch to kick and snare. But that's not Alan's fault.
(I am not commenting on the accompanying "EP" - whoever came up with that stupid idea?)
Okie dokie then…I’m really not sure what to say. I’m glad I have a streaming subscription and didn’t preorder. Overall I’m not hearing much, if any, upgrade over Heaven & Earth. Moving Steve Howe into the supporting/co-lead vocal role formerly occupied by Chris Squire really makes for a more difficult listening experience. There’s some tasty guitar playing for sure and you can hear all of it clearly because the guitar player is the producer, but unremarkable tunes, mediocre to poor vocals and a general aura of bland tepidness from front to back.
Song by song:
“The Ice Bridge” The original instrumental is better IMHO.
“Dare To Know” Nice guitar playing, but not much of a song in there at all. The Howeison vocals are rough going for me.
“Minus The Man” You know that things are off to a rough start when I start looking to Billy Sherwood for relief. I like this better than the first two tracks, but it’s sort of middle tier Sherwood with some unwieldy and head scratching lyrics.
“Leave Well Alone” A few nice guitar bits, but incoherent. More Howeison vocals. Yuck. I really don’t understand why they keep going into what sounds kinda like a disco version of “Holy Diver” with Casio keyboards.
“The Western Edge” Steve Howe finally turns on Billy Sherwood’s microphone and it’s almost like welcoming an old friend. As with “The Game” on H&E the bass player comes through with the only keeper of the batch. I like this song and the way the vocals move around each other. Also some nice slide guitar from Howe.
“Future Memories” For some reason this sounds like a Queensryche ballad, possibly like a poorer version of “Someone Else?”, that never quite manages to get going and the chorus is pretty bad.
“Music To My Ears” Not with more Howeison vocals it isn’t.
“A Living Island” This is the most frustrating track for me, because I think it actually has potential. The first 2/3 are pretty decent and I can’t knock the “Juano stuck on an island with his girl” theme. The only annoyance is that when Davison reaches back for more and kicks into the higher register vocals he sounds kinda shrill and shrieky, like his voice is about to crack. All this is basically ruined by the last part which is a whole bunch of what are now pandemicy feel good cliches strung together in a mighty chorus of “God Gave COVID 19 To You” with apologies to Argent and Kiss.
“Sister Sleeping Soul” Steve Howe plays the lute while Davison skips around in that jester costume he picked up at the Renaissance festival.
“Mystery Tour” How can something billed as a Beatles tribute go so wrong? It’s like a super weak Traveling Wilburys tune with horrible lyrics.
“Damaged World” Howeison returns to close things out. This track doesn’t really go anywhere or do much for me.
Last edited by Frumious B; 10-01-2021 at 07:54 AM.
"It was a cruel song, but fair."-Roger Waters
I did tell you ages back that you wouldn't like this album.
Also, the adjective from Howe is "Hovian" (compare Shaw/Shavian).
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
I’m combining “Howe” and “Davison” to describe the singing on the tracks where they sing together. Hence “Howeison”.
"It was a cruel song, but fair."-Roger Waters
Oh. Well, that didn't come across. You need the "v": "Howvison". Howe refers to them as "duet vocals". I think they work well, but I know you really, really don't like Davison's vocals, so it was always going to be an uphill struggle for this album to gain your affections.
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
I’ll give a “thumbs up” to the Davison/Sherwood singing on “The Western Edge” and also the lower register parts near the beginning of “A Living Island” where he sounds a little bit like Al Jardine to me.
"It was a cruel song, but fair."-Roger Waters
Really enjoyed your review but that was my favourite bit. I said something similar in the review I wrote, but not quite nearly as well phrased.
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Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos
Bass playing is really good. The album is pleasant enough. The orchestra is really not out in front as I feared. It sounds pretty seamlessly integrated and not just grafted on. Finally, I don't notice Howe's vocals as much as some others have highlighted. It's not as jarringly present as it is on his solo albums. I like his voice in the background and think it's essential to the Yes vocal sound. As a lead voice, I'd rather listen to nails on a chalkboard. Uh, oh....."Damaged World" just came on. Horrible Howe croaking front and center. Still, it doesn't manage to become cringe-worthy.
Last edited by Guitarplyrjvb; 10-01-2021 at 09:52 AM.
The playing is great; Alan's doing what he can but he's holding it together. The songs are just so "meh" and I feel Davison isn't able to put it over as well as he needs to.
"Leave Well Alone," in particular, could have done with stronger vocals. There's a bit in the middle that reminds me of "Long Distance Runaround" and the funk groove isn't terrible. All in all it kind of reminds me of mid-period Camel.
Last edited by ThomasKDye; 10-01-2021 at 10:28 AM.
"Arf." -- Frank Zappa, "Beauty Knows No Pain" (live version)
While I'm waiting for my copy to arrive, I felt drawn to listen on YT to Dare to Know yesterday(I've not been listening since the first time it was posted).
I had my Sony MDR-7506 headphones on, and I found Steve's vocals to be pleasant, a nice counter balance to Jon's vocals. He's mixed in very well and the balance is his vocal parts are mixed lower and softer.
I don't find Steve's vocals on the Fly From Here as annoying as some people here do. He's not a lead singer, but the feeling his vocals bring to some of his own compositions are to me part of the song.
Truthfully, I would prefer Steve's vocals with Jon on some of the songs than Billy. I think Billy blends better with Jon on the faster, louder songs.
But I agree, there are times when he shouldn't be doing vocals.
Soundcloud page: Richard Hermans, musical meanderings https://soundcloud.com/precipice YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@richardhermans4457
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