Member:
Frumious B
Date:
3/10/2003
Rewind back to 1995-96 and the reunion of the celebrated Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman and Alan White configuration of Yes. Expectations were high for a new studio album and a tour that would blow minds across North America, Europe and beyond. Those expectations didn't last.
The reunion started promisingly enough with a couple of concerts in the Southern California town of San Luis Obispo and rumors of studio work that owed much more to the Yes of the 70s than to the Yes of the 80s. However, instead of the anticipated studio album, Yes fans got a pair of heavily overdubbed live albums bearing the moniker Keys To Ascension with the new studio tracks awkwardly tacked on to the end. Wakeman bailed, a tour was scuttled and the band frantically recruited Billy Sherwood and slapped together the oft derided Open Your Eyes, leaving some fine songs twisting in the wind.
This release does a little bit to remedy the situation by compiling just the studio tracks from both volumes of Keys To Ascension onto one disc. If you're a Yes fan with a CD burner then you've very likely already done this and the only thing you're missing by not buying this is a bit of Wakeman synth pounding before "Children Of Light". Of the two epics, "Mind Drive" gets most of the ink and, while it's certainly good, "That That Is" is a bit more interesting and varied, despite a bit of CNN inspired Jon Anderson lyric goofiness. The other tracks are solid modern day Yes. The only real duffer here is "Be The One".
If you skipped the KTA releases entirely then this is a great way to catch up with some of Yes' most intriguing studio work of the past twenty years. With a little more work and a little more tweaking this material could have easily approached the quality of their vaunted 70s albums. As it is, it's still pretty darned impressive. This is definitely the album that Yes should have released in 96-97 and toured behind. It's likely that none of this music will ever be performed live, but it's nice to finally have all of it on one officially released disc. (Rating: 8 out of 10)-Chris Hosford
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