Why am I reviewing this particular album? Well, I intended on reviewing Tales From Topographic Oceans, but I simply like this one better. And why? Because it fucking rocks, plain and simple. Whereas Tales From Topographic Oceans kinda sorta well, really just, simply...... doesn't. But I guess I can kinda sorta review both in one fell swoop..... So, here it goes.....
Tales is a rather well know/infamous album. It came out on the heels of the very successful Close To The Edge album and tour that followed. Yes were certainly happening. It had been a rocky few years up to this point, with a Yes member jumping (or being thrown, depending on who you ask) off the ship by the time each ensuing album was released. But they'd finally managed to meld into something solid. Keyboard deity Rick Wakeman had obliterated memory (somewhat unfairly) of the departed Tony Kaye while guitar sorcerer Steve Howe did the same with some other guy. Bill Bruford was back there on drums, pushing his instrument off into pretty much unknown territory rock-wise, and more into the realm of what someone like Tony Willams had been doing with Miles Davis. Chris Squire and Jon Anderson were on fire, and the whole thing really cooked. Jon's mystical flake-train leanings were given a solid kick in the ass by the dark tinged jazzy edge his band-mates thrust at whatever magic carpet he rode on.
So, in typical Yes fashion, it couldn't last. Bill Bruford decided to celebrate all this good fortune by quitting the band and joining King Crimson. He wanted to keep developing and pushing the drum kit. Changing the way it was viewed and applied. Good idea, I suppose, but a bit sad when you listen to his post Yes work and nothing really jumps out at you like what he did on Fragile/Close To The Edge. He also went on to pioneer the use of really awful sounding electronic drums. Rejoining Jon Anderson Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman much later on a tour where he tried his best to make the whole thing sound like complete shit. But alas, we're still dealing with 1973 here and Yes had another album to make.
Jon and Steve apparently had a much different routine than most rock stars in the early 70's. Instead of wall to wall drinking/drugging/debauchery, these guys much preferred quiet nights mediating in their hotel room and reading from the Autobiography Of A Yogi. From this whole scene sprang the idea for a sprawling album project. And sprawling it would indeed be. The album was to contain a mere four "songs" each spread over an entire side of vinyl. Good idea, huh? Well, sure! You only have four songs to glue together, so you'd better pull from the pile of good ones laying around. Uh, wait, you don't have any good ones laying around? Oh, you don't have ANY? OK, I guess you ought to get up from your incense spewing alter and get working on that!
So, work on it they did and the whole thing came steaming into the shops wrapped in a truly splendid Roger Dean gate-fold package. And I do mean splendid! Just looking at the thing makes you feel like you've just watched some epic fantasy film. Roger really knocked it out of the park this time. You're looking at some sort of Mayan temple thing out in the middle of some nighttime vista. Then you look on the back and the vista continues only now there are fish swimming around in the..... Wait! What the fuck? Fish? Swimming around in the, what? In the air? Well, there's no point in even wondering because the whole thing is gorgeous. Just gorgeous!
Then you open the gate-fold and turn it over. This, my friends, is where the trouble begins. You're suddenly looking at a rather bland and crammed bunch of lyrics, ramblings, and tiny little indistinct pictures depicting vague earthly landscapes. You've got an odd mumbling paragraph from Jon describing the impetus for the creation of the album..... or something, and then a Bible's worth of barely legible/comprehensible lyrics. So, with a sudden jab of increasing trepidation, you pull out the first gleaming slab of black vinyl (with a nifty Roger Deal label design) and administer the needle.
Hmmmm, where to begin with this one? I tell you what, I certainly won't start by bashing Alan White like so many Bruford worshipers do. The man's responsible for my all time favorite drum track (Lennon's Instant Karma) so if all he did on this album was whack two wet spaghetti noodles together, he'd still deserve nothing but respect. But never fear, Mr. White does much much more..... As the story, so often blathered, goes: Bruford was a peerless innovator. A jazz wunderkind who would much rather have his eyes gouged out by a pair of splintered drum sticks than play a straight beat, while Alan White was merely a plodding "rock guy"... It may be true that Alan indeed was more of a rock guy. But, um, when was this a bad thing? I guess you could say the same of Bonham, Ginger Baker, Ringo, or really anyone. Bill played to show off, (a wonderful thing in his case) while Alan plays for the feel, for the pocket, for the song. And I tell you, they're damned lucky they had a guy playing for the song this time out. Especially considering they didn't really have any. And for a plodding rock guy, the drumming, quite frankly, is the most memorable thing about the whole album. Most of Alan's work here is plainly weird. First off, he's placed way back in the mix as opposed to Bill who played so damn lightly they had to crank him up to the front. This is something of a shock if you've just finished listening to Close To The Edge. But once you've gotten used to the different feel, it pays off handsomely. Sure, there are a few more basic, hi-hat-based drum patterns than you're used to, but it feels good and when things get weird, so does Alan. On "The Ancient" (side three or something) Mr. White plays neither plodding rock nor Bruford style jazz/prog/wank, rather it sounds like he raided an auto graveyard (something he actually DID on Relayer) and bolted together some Frankenstein monster of a percussion get-up and proceeded to pummel the thing to death with a pair of tree trunks. For the final track "Ritual" he's mercilessly beating the shit out of his toms toms and the moment is so infections, the other guys drop their instruments and join him on assorted percussion (well, not until after Chris Squire sneaks in an awesome bass solo). It's a thunderous moment (a real show stopper live) and you're suddenly grinning from ear to ear remembering "Yeah, a little bit of muscle on the drums can be a whole lot of fun"
Nuff said about Tales From Topographic Oceans.... I love the album dearly, but it's far from lovable.
Onto Relayer.....
So, guess what?
Who quit the band now, you might ask?
Hmmmm, looks like it was the hard drinking carnivore in the cape who once had an order of ribs delivered onstage to the horror of his vegetarian band mates. Yup, Mr. Wakeman had packed up his keyboards and (in possibly the worlds largest U-Haul) drove off with them into the sunset.... At least for the time being.
Enter Patrick Moraz. Some Spanish guy with a few less keyboards and a huge leaning toward jazz noodling. Ah, him and Bruford would have gotten along famously. Wait, they in fact DID record together. But more on that, and Mr. Moraz later....
Relayer fucking rocks! Yeah, I'm repeating myself, but it begs repeating. Relayer gets everything right that Tales seemed to have gotten wrong. This time they had a mere three songs to write, only one taking up an entire side of vinyl. However, this time they really rolled up their sleeves and got down to business. All three tracks are stone cold classics. The opener "The Gates Of Delirium" really IS an epic movie in and of itself!
You wanna know what bass and drums are all about???
Well, put John and Keith aside for a moment and check these guys out. All the silly Bruford comparisons must have pissed Alan White off royally. Here he's completely off his gourd. His touch is both muscular but light. You listen to this and you swear the guy must have four arms and five legs. There's a steady violent thrust to his playing, while at the same time, his fingertips are dancing around the whole thing punctuating the various nuances that threaten to be swept up in the swirl. This might have made for a murky mess if Chris Squire hadn't been up to the task. But up for it he damn well was. The bass locks firm with the drums while snaking around the whole thing, egging the rhythm on and pushing it further and further into the stratosphere. At some point, the whole track gets so violent you worry if your dinky speakers can handle it, but then it simmers down to a calm and Jon comes in with possibly his finest vocal/lyrical work. What began as a frantic battle of sounds/instruments, segues into a gorgeous ballad of survival and perseverance.
Flip the record over (after you peel yourself off the floor) and here comes "Sound Chaser" Ah, they must have exhausted themselves with side one, you might assume. And perhaps you sit back awaiting something along the lines of "And You And I" to follow. But wait, here comes some weird jazz babble on the keyboards and damn it if Alan isn't still pissed off. He's suddenly back flailing away on his tom-toms and thrown-off snare going around and around and back and then around again, making sure each poor drum gets equal punishment. Then he settles into some perplexing rhythm that really makes no sense and makes you feel a bit uneasy, so you sit there waiting for Jon, Chris, and Steve to come put him and Patrick on a time-out. But no! They all come rampaging in and it all goes completely insane until Alan seemingly falls over, Chris knocks out his power cable, and Steve fails to notice. He just stands here flailing all over the place on his poor guitar, mercilessly running freakish scales and really, kinda, hurting the damn thing. He finally takes a breath and comes back to his senses and Jon steps up to somehow put the feeling into words. It's a lovely moment of calm and Jon sounds just fantastic, but Alan suddenly wakes up and thinks maybe he's at the back of an orchestra pit and proceeds to turn his floor tom into a kettle drum before realizing he's indeed in Yes and still in the middle of Sound Chaser. Just before he goes insane once again, Chris adjusts his tights, plugs his bass back in and calamity ensues. Jon tries to keep up but soon collapses into a wordless and aggressive series of whacked out chants. The whole thing skyrockets into space and explodes.
Pure unfettered brilliance! The reason music exists in the first place.
Yes, there's one more song "To Be Over" and it's a beauty. But you kind of sit through it in tatters, your senses slowly returning. And by the gorgeous fade, you're more than likely heading off into a deep sleep filled with ash gray dreams of granite castles and coiled snakes.
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