New YES CD "Heaven & Earth" due July 8 / U.S. Summer tour

[Yeswave]

You don't bite the hand that feeds you...

I personally think it is the job of artists to do just that...and see if they keep feeding you... push the boundries...make them uncomfortable etc etc

[YESHEAD777]

Well, I can only assume that those who have been trashing this album were just upset that it didn't meet their preconceived notions of what Yes is "supposed" to sound like. I've listened all the way through on headphones twice, and I find plenty to like. Howe is fully present throughout, with lots of tasteful playing. Downes and White play in service to the songs, with Downes stepping out just enough to make his mark. Squire's bass has an unusual timbre, a little reminiscent of that envelope filter style we heard on Tormato, and his backing vocals are remarkably powerful.

Davison is excellent -- his voice lacks the grit of Jon Anderson's and sounds a little thinner, but he can reach some stratospheric heights and sounds fantastic doing it. I also love that he brings a spirituality back to the lyrics, without being a clone of Anderson's lyrical approach. I see in the liner notes that Davison thanks Paramahansa Yogananda and Self-Realization Fellowship for spiritual guidance -- for those who don't know, Yogananda was the author of Autobiography of a Yogi, the book whose famous footnotes gave birth to the idea for Topographic Oceans. So Davison seems to be on the same spiritual wavelength with Anderson, and he was a known fan of the band and its music before he came onboard -- you really couldn't ask for a better replacement for Anderson.

Catchy tunes, great melodies and harmonies. So what that they aren't playing every song out for 12 minutes with a dozen key and tempo changes? They actually tried something different this time, and I commend them for it. This album is a huge step up from Fly From Here, which left me almost completely cold.

Criticisms: "To Ascend" is just OK; it's pretty but doesn't really seem to go anywhere. "In a World of Our Own" doesn't work for me at all; the shuffle mood sounds awkward, clumsy, and forced, and some of the lyrics are pretty weak ("I eat at Chez Nous" comes to mind). And I still feel as if the progressive noodling on "Subway Walls" is there just to appease everyone who expects it on a Yes album. The whole song feels unfocused and seems to try too hard.

But that's three out of eight. The rest is great. "Believe Again" and "In a World of Our Own" are still my favorite tracks. Considering "Hour of Need" was the only song I liked on Fly From Here, I'm starting to think Howe is the strongest writer in the band today, aside from Davison.

Way too early to rank this in the Yes catalog, but it's FAR from being the disaster so many people have made it out to be. Overall, I find it a very satisfying album. Looking forward to giving this many more spins.

Overall I agree and identify with this reviewer's comments most of all-even though I've only been able to listen to it on the computer through crappy speakers. I imagine that once I get the Cd and crank it up in the car it will be MUCH better. Yes it is Yes "Lite", and not very proggy, at least in any aggressive way. But one thing I love about it is the new-agey spiritual feel it has, and it actuall reminds me alot of Jon Anderson's early solo records alot. "Believe Again" is very catchy, but has some interesting changes, and great soloing from Steve.
In fact, Steve shines through the whole record, along with Chris' harmony vocals. I actually have gotten more use to Geoff's playing, and it fits this album perfectly. AIMHO, Jon Davison is a star in his own right. He has proven this with his work on Glass Hammer's last 4 albums, and not only hits the notes JA used to hit live, but with great emotion. He has brought the epheral and spiritual scope back to the band. Here's hoping they'll play "Believe Again" next Monday!

[Frumious B]

Davison mentions one song being a "Motown pastiche". I'm assuming he must be talking about "In A World Of Our Own" by process of elimination but if he thinks that song resembles Motown in any way, shape or fashion then that could go some distance towards explaining why this record is such tough going for me.

[Frumious B]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating... A few spurious negative reviews from fanboy pages/wannabe Prog websites/personal blogs etc are not game-changing concepts in the grand scheme. The fact that the last Jon Anderson led album, Magnification was a commercial disaster is not my problem because I was not involved. Believe me, an album released by a mega band like Yes, on a major label that stiffs at 186 on the Billboard chart and doesn't even register in the UK top 50 is a disaster whatever way you look at it. Fly From Here as I pointed out fared considerably better at 36 US and 30 UK respectively. You really have to deal with the facts in this game, otherwise you can end up with your head up your own arse!

Magnification wasn't on a major label, not in the US anyway. It was on a label in the throes of a fiscal meltdown that ended up going under and the album was a victim of that. It also had the bad fortune to come out on Sept 10, 2001 in Europe and the UK which ended up being a tiny stroke of good fortune for me as the music on an import copy of Magnification was one of the very few things that gave me some comfort and allowed me to heal and feel normal again after the horrific events of the following day. IMHO that is an album that deserved sooooooooooo much better.

[Frumious B]

Also it occurs to me that we might as well wait a few more days for the real charts as opposed to charts that can change hour to hour.

[yamishogun]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating... A few spurious negative reviews from fanboy pages/wannabe Prog websites/personal blogs etc are not game-changing concepts in the grand scheme. The fact that the last Jon Anderson led album, Magnification was a commercial disaster is not my problem because I was not involved..

Here's the problem Geoff, Heaven and Earth is just plain fucking boring. You probably don't agree, but come back to PE when you get your ears checked, mate.

Just to add that I think H&E is a worthy tribute of an Olivia Newton-John album. I can see Olivia and you on keys touring in 2015 with her on the lead of "Believe Again" and "The Game" Then Howe and Olivia can jam on "To Ascend"

[Harbottle]

Here's the problem Geoff, Heaven and Earth is just plain fucking boring. You probably don't agree, but come back to PE when you get your ears checked, mate.

In your opinion. I don't find it 'plain fucking boring.'

[Frumious B]

Here's the problem Geoff, Heaven and Earth is just plain fucking boring. You probably don't agree, but come back to PE when you get your ears checked, mate.

Just to add that I think H&E is a worthy tribute of an Olivia Newton-John album. I can see Olivia and you on keys touring in 2015 with her on the lead of "Believe Again" and "The Game" Then Howe and Olivia can jam on "To Ascend"

You might want to edit your post so it doesn't look like you are responding to me.

IMHO Olivia Newton-John would likely demand more polished sounding songs than much of what is to be found on H&E.

[yamishogun]

You might want to edit your post so it doesn't look like you are responding to me.

IMHO Olivia Newton-John would likely demand more polished sounding songs than much of what is to be found on H&E.

oops, sorry about the edit. Rock on Olivia (seriously, I like her!)

[Dodie]

All this talk about facts, eh?
OK, here's a fact: commercial sales and chart positions fall very much into the "lies, damn lies and statistics" way of looking at commercially distributed recorded music.
For better or worse, no really avid lovers of specialist music (whether that's renaissance polyphony, dixie jazz, folk or prog rock) give a stuff about sales figures and chart positions.
Those bean-counting things matter to those making a living out of a product, but not to most of the generally sensible mature listeners out there (of which I suspect there may be some). We just want something with the perfect balance of artistic integrity, technical skill and a broad range of emotional passions.
So, those things are the "facts" most serious musical listeners want.

With my eldest son having just arrived home from a 2-year stint in Ecuador, listening to the new Yes album hasn't been a priority when there are so many important family events going on. So I've only managed to listen to the first half of it a couple of times so far, and here's my earth-shattering subjective opinions in two parts:

1) I like the actual material/songs better than I thought I would, so the material is not as hopelessly and woefully flaccid as some have been complaining of. Some of this material is rather good, and I find it has grown on me after the initial hearing. There are some passages in most songs that seem tritely cliched and lacking in inspiration (the Abba "Name of the game" rising melodic phrase in "One step beyond" is getting on my nerves), but this isn't the worst Yes material I've ever heard in terms of song-writing and ideas.

2) The production is clear and nice for the vocals (I like Jon Davison's contributions a lot), and the guitars and keys are nicely recorded too. Choice of sounds from Howe and Downes work pretty well on the whole: some of the lead guitar breaks feel a bit short-breathed and perfunctory, but I'm pleasantly surprised how much I like Downes' synths this time around. The bass and drums lack the vivid character and flamboyance that most of us surely want from Yes (whether its adventurous early 70s Yes or Rabin-esque poppier Yes of the 80s-early 90s, etc.); a lot of the finer details seem perfunctory, and I can't help but think that the bland mix and underwhelming limp punch from the rhythm section are essentially Roy Thomas Baker's failure - perhaps he could have demanded (or wanted) more energy from the rhythm section? Of course, the band themselves carry the ultimate responsibility for how the album sounds. Talk, Keys to Ascension 2, The Ladder, Magnification and Fly From Here were all more strongly produced and fresher sounding than this is. And yet I like the material on this new album a bit more than I liked the songs on Fly From Here. To me, this sounds like a line-up of Yes that is in transition and might have more flavourful stuff to offer us next time around if they consolidate soon and do another album with a tougher and smarter producer. But how many years have some of us been optimistically saying that?

So, in a nutshell, I don't care what chart position this has, or what chart position any previous Yes albums had. It's totally irrelevant to me as a devoted music lover. I'm also the kind of Yes fan who doesn't really have a fixed idea on line-ups or styles, in that my favourite albums nowadays are probably The Yes Album, Relayer and Talk (not much in common between those three!), and there are assorted tracks on almost all diverse albums that I really love. But I am legitimately disappointed so far that the production, performances and overall impact of Heaven and Earth are weaker than the best of its material deserves.

As so often, somewhere between the angry vitriol and the blind adoration, the truth is out there...
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a new album by Yes that's so-so, ok, alright and has its good bits as well as some duff moments. Business as usual!

P.S. I reserve the right to oscillate wildly between surprised enthusiasm ("it's not that bad at all!") and disappointment ("oh, it is that bad, actually!") as I continue listening to the rest of the album, and then give it a few more tries.

[Facelift]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating... A few spurious negative reviews from fanboy pages/wannabe Prog websites/personal blogs etc are not game-changing concepts in the grand scheme.

Do you mean this to say that the album sold modestly well despite negative feedback? Why would anybody expect that early negative fan reviews *would* impact sales? As others have pointed out, the most important factor driving the sales of a particular album is the most recent album. Also, early reviews don't impact sales any more - and who knows how much they ever really did? But it's too bad that you're only looking at this angle of it. It's too bad that you're mostly only concerned with (very) modest commercial success instead of the fact that most Yes fans who hear it don't like it.

The fact that the last Jon Anderson led album, Magnification was a commercial disaster is not my problem because I was not involved. Believe me, an album released by a mega band like Yes, on a major label that stiffs at 186 on the Billboard chart and doesn't even register in the UK top 50 is a disaster whatever way you look at it. Fly From Here as I pointed out fared considerably better at 36 US and 30 UK respectively. You really have to deal with the facts in this game, otherwise you can end up with your head up your own arse!

You think Heaven and Earth would have its same rankings if it sold the same number of copies in 2001? Are you even considering Magnification's label situation? And by the way, how was Aura selling in 2001? Hmmm.

[Jay.Dee]

Just to add that I think H&E is a worthy tribute of an Olivia Newton-John album.

Wow, the bash-fest is entering the critical phase. But guys, please do not use "Magnification" as an example of prime prog, because if "H&E" is supposed to be a tribute to Olivia Newton-John then "Magnification" was the perfect material for a Celine Dion anniversary recital. I bet that if they had only dumped Jon and invited Celine, it would have sold much better.

[ronmac]

Wow, I can't believe I'm reading this. Such pettiness. Oh, wait, I can believe it.

Geoff, you're doing yourself no favors by wallowing in the muck.

[Frumious B]

Wow, the bash-fest is entering the critical phase. But guys, please do not use "Magnification" as an example of prime prog, because if "H&E" is supposed to be a tribute to Olivia Newton-John then "Magnification" was the perfect material for a Celine Dion anniversary recital. I bet that if they had only dumped Jon and invited Celine, it would have sold much better.

I don't care if Magnification is "prime prog". IMHO The vast majority of prog is BS anyway, especially if there aren't the tunes to back it up. What Magnification IS to me is a strong, accomplished, emotional and mature set of songs that hearkens back to Yes' late sixties beginnings in a lot of ways. I could give a rat's ass how prog it is or isn't. I don't buy albums because they are prog.

[JKL2000]

Had my first listen to H & E last night. Very hard to judge from only one listen, but yes it is a bizarrely slow-paced album for Yes. But there seemed to be enough hooks that I'll happily give it a few more spins and reserve judgement for now. And the bass is very strangely buried under everything else.

[Jay.Dee]

Geoff, you're doing yourself no favors by wallowing in the muck.

For me Geoff is the Jose Mourinho of prog and this thread is like a post-match readers comments section on a sports magazine site.

[Esoteric]

I also think it's unfair to judge on the magnification album, the internet and social network scene has hugely matured since then and it's much easier to reach a fanbase, certainly if it was on a label with difficulties too there would not have been the marketing clout either which can make a huge difference, particularly in somewhere as vast as the USA , it's also wrong to have a chart fixation without taking into account a vast range of reactions, be that fans, audiences or journalists reviews. One thing I will say is that fans tastes can change too, what they would have liked 15 years ago may now have changed as the scene has changed too, they may have suddenly found they like the experimental side of prog or got into the heavier more metal side of Prog etc, so an album they would have thought ok 15 years ago does nothing for them now and of course vice versa.

[Sean]

Not sure what rate the MP3s sent out for review originally were, but I made a fresh batch from the real CD yesterday and they sounded a whole lot better. The rate the sample ones were ripped at did the album no favors in advance.

Another thought crossed my mind too. Why always release the whole thing in advance? Wouldn't a handful of the best cuts be as enticing and leave a little mystery.

I thought it would be funny as can be if the day the CD officially came out there were songs on it not on the advance copies. Prog fans would have been shitting if that leftover epic was on there.

Anyway, glad to see it chart well. A nice footnote after months of critical examination. Drama isn't just an album at some Yesfans's houses. It's a way of life apparently.

One thing I do find refreshing here is the lack of 3/5 or "No Jon, No Yes" tirades. At least we aren't a harbor for crazy zealots. Opinioned proggers yes, but thankfully not much beyond that. Not to suggest everyone that dislikes the current incarnation is a nutcase, but the types that resort to hateful comments over a "rock band", of all things, definitely need their head examined. Nice to not see that crap here. Thank you for being a cut above.

[2steves]

Record sales have always been an issue with any band---90125 really opened a Pandora's box of expectations---I mean if they sell 300 CD's they might just as well sell them out of Squire's garage---And I think it's cool that Geoff wants to be a part of the debate---I mean you don't want this forum to become the Fox news of hatred for Obama (or in this case Heaven and Earth) with no one expressing the other point of view. Having said that I think Facelift will become this albums biggest fan in about two weeks!!! (kidding)

[ThomasKDye]

"In a World of Our Own" doesn't work for me at all

"Believe Again" and "In a World of Our Own" are still my favorite tracks.

What?

[ItalProgRules]

You topped my rather mild rant several pages back by a mile there, Rand.

As for me, I like the album and I loved the show the other night. If I could catch them again on this tour, I would. I flew to see them and spent a wad as it is, but if I could afford it, I'd go again.

[Yeswave]

>it has become another AMY

Oh no please God no!

[Harbottle]

My nice blue vinyl arrived today.

[aith01]

Is the vinyl edition still only available in Europe? I've been waiting to hear if it becomes available in the US, or if there is a reasonably affordable way of getting it...

[Sean]

Enough. This thread is not really showing the true value and goodness of PE at this point.

Think we can start fresh and BS free? I have doubts. YES just stirs passions that bring out the fool in many.

Honestly, it would do this site good to forget about Yes for while anyway. There are 100s of bands that get only a sliver of the attention they do here and if you all weren't busy talking about Yes all the time some other bands might get the due they deserve.

This thread hasn't offered much more than speculation and car wreck gawking for the bulk of it's existence so it's value has been dubious at best. PE can do better.