The Official Yes Thread

[Trollheart]

That's so weak it's almost not there. Went in one ear and out the other. Vapid.

[Queen Boo]

Man this sounds so phoned in it's sad, no hooks and way overproduced. Yes without Anderson is a hard sell for me but Yes without Anderson AND Squire? This isn't Yes anymore. Sherwood is no Squire though he's trying I guess, and say what you will about Anderson as a lyricist he sure as hell can do better than this, these lyrics sound like a sh*tty poem some kid made after listening to a Neil Degrasse Tyson podcast. I do dig Howe's little guitar solo around the 3 minute mark but even he barely makes much of a presence here.

If Yes are just gonna be a glorified cover band from now on I dunno why they even bother making new songs.

At least the Roger Dean artwork is neat, as usual.

[Lisnaholic]

I pretty much agree with the opinions of you guys, and while the toned-down Yes-type music was playing, I focussed on the lyrics. They start out as a tolerable pastiche of J Anderson on earlier albums. To me their structure suggests Siberian Khatru (Outboard, river/Bluetail, tailfly) with a little nod to Roundabout in the choice of the word "walkabout" :-

Starlight
Gaze out
Walkabout
International dark sky park

Desert
Twilight
Second sight
International dark sky park

Relate
Reach out

But then the words slide off into very sub-Anderson lines like:-

When I'm in need of some perspective
I find my place in the jewelled collective

I wanna be in zero G

The singer doesn't match the power or impact of Anderson, though, and neither does the music, which in a similar way gives the impression of a group pouring over albums from 50 years ago and trying to come up with something similar. One thing they missed out, however, was the beautiful quiet bits that I love in the real Yes albums - instead the music here just keeps pushing along in its undramatic way: breathless and yet failing to escape that constrained sound which I think is the result of the over-production that some of you have mentioned. Very disappointing.

[Queen Boo]

That zero-G line is cringe indeed.

A big part of what makes Yes so great is how dynamic their music is and I'm just not hearing any of that in this new stuff.

[Lisnaholic]

Yep, absolutely agree on both counts, Queen Boo. This latest song is also lacking any of those spectacular synth moments that Rick Wakeman used to add to the mix.

[Synthgirl]

While we're on the subject, I've honestly always loved Anderson's mystical mumbo jumbo lyrics. It adds a lot to making their music feel otherworldly and whenever he tried to be more concrete and traditional in his lyrics I felt it wasn't as compelling.

[Lisnaholic]

Yes, a lot of people dismiss his lyrics as pretentious nonsense, and they are a little difficult to defend, especially after JA admitted that he chose words for their sound, not their meaning. But yeah, he comes up with some great unusual combinations of words, and in the end I think they add to the music's longevity, simply because you'll never really understand what the songs are about.
"How can the wind with its arms all around me?" "Move over glory to sons of old fighters past" Great stuff!

[Queen Boo]

Originally Posted by Synthgirl

While we're on the subject, I've honestly always loved Anderson's mystical mumbo jumbo lyrics. It adds a lot to making their music feel otherworldly and whenever he tried to be more concrete and traditional in his lyrics I felt it wasn't as compelling.

I agree, I feel like Anderson's attempts at being more coherent usually results in his worst lyrics.

[Queen Boo]

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

Yes, a lot of people dismiss his lyrics as pretentious nonsense, and they are a little difficult to defend, especially after JA admitted that he chose words for their sound, not their meaning. But yeah, he comes up with some great unusual combinations of words

I honestly really like that approach, plenty of other lyricists do something similar. Damo Sazuki, Mark E. Smith, Kurt Cobain, Beck and Thom Yorke all come to mind.

[Lisnaholic]

I didn't know that all those guys did something similar; the only singer there that I'm properly familiar with is Damo Sazuki, whose style I really like. I've listened to a fair amount of Can and almost never have a clue what he's singing: what language, or if he is using words at all.