Terrible News

Chris Squire, the bass player for Yes, has passed away.  Rolling Stone has the story:

Chris Squire, the co-founder and longtime bassist of prog rock icons Yes and the only member of the group to feature on every studio album, has passed away just over a month after revealing that he was suffering from a rare form of leukemia. Squire was 67. Current Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes first tweeted the news, "Utterly devastated beyond words to have to report the sad news of the passing of my dear friend, bandmate and inspiration Chris Squire."

Yes has been one of my favorite bands for decades, since my brother Paul taped a copy of Close to the Edge for me when I was ten.  I saw them play in Atlanta, in March of this year, just after the recent studio album, Heaven and Earth came out.  This is very sad.  

More here from Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman.

Off-Topic: Heaven & Earth: A Second Listen

I thought it might grow on me.  Nope, not any better the second time around.  The main problem, in my opinion, seems to be that much of the songwriting has been assumed by Jon Davison and his songwriting is much more AOR-oriented.  That doesn't work for Yes. 

Disappointed

The fifth part of the response to David Menton will be here shortly.  In the meantime, I am going off topic.  Here is a review of the new Yes album that I just sent to iTunes:

I believe that when Yes released “Believe Again,” it was a tactical move because that song sounds the most like traditional Yes.  On the new album, it is the only song that does.  While that is, in and of itself, not necessarily a bad thing, in this case, it is.  It is as if the members consciously went through a process of trying to write a different kind of music for this album just for the sake of doing so.  It doesn’t work.  It really doesn’t work.  Most of the songs are very mild and uninteresting, with no hooks or stand-out playing.  In fact, it is difficult to tell that it is Yes, at all.  Fly From Here didn’t have to grow on me.  From the first chords, you knew exactly who you were listening to and even from the opening track, the album had punch.  This has absolutely none.  The production is flat and there are no sections that reach out and grab you with any power at all.  Even the peculiar “Union” disc had punch, even if the songs were uneven.  Here, the songs are very even—too much so.  Geoff Downes recently said that this line-up has quite a bit of life left in them.  I hope they show more of it the next time around. 

Now listening to Tales from Topographic Oceans.  Crying a little bit.

July 22, 2014

Yay!

Due out July 12

Been waitin' ten long years...