When this came out "Stereo Sound" was just coming out. It was pretty revolutionary for the time and holds up well IMO. A lot of rock purists hated the use of Mellotrons and synthesizers, but not me anyway. It was no accident that the Rock and Roll HOF was really slow to put Prog artists in it. Listening to this album on headphones with a nice buzz was enlightening at 14-15 years old.
Yeah the music press also hated prog at the time (as they do most genres that become popular) and of course that led to the punk movement coming along half a decade later and they really hated prog (most likely because they couldn't do it - those prog guys were all first class musicians), but in fact progressive music never really went away - it just moved into the underground and its influence continues to permeate the entire music industry to this day. Of course some of the old prog bands are still releasing records today (albeit usually with just one or two of the original members. A perfect example of this is Yes, who released their latest album, The Quest just over a year ago, and despite the fact that none of the founding members are still in the band, on this album they've really started to recapture the sound that made them prog icons in the 70s. Even the vocals by Jon Davison sound a lot like the early Jon Anderson style which was always a huge part of the overall distinctive Yes sound. The only problem I have with The Quest is that Steve Howe is taking on the role of backing vocalist, taking over from Chris Squire. The trouble is that while Howe is an amazing guitarist, he really
cannot sing at all - they really should have let Billy Sherwood do the backing vocals, but although Howe's voice does grate, it's not enough to spoil the album as a whole.
In my humble opinion, The Quest is by far the best album that Yes have released in over 40 years, and while it may still not be up to the standards of Close To The Edge or Tales From Topographic Oceans (my own favourite of early Yes, as it was another one that was in my dad's record collection - he was very much into prog), this is still a really good album, though overall it does suffer just a bit because the opening track The Ice Bridge is so great that the rest of the tracks struggle to reach the same quality. Having said that, it's still among their best releases, and at least it does
sound like the classic Yes.
And of course Yes is now firmly established in the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame (and about time too)
And this is the best track on the new album, and by quite some distance;
