"Open Your Eyes," the new studio album from Yes is due out November 25, 1997. Yescography is proud to present this exclusive review. There are no "Close To The Edge's" or "Revealing Science Of God's" here. Instead, Yes presents us eleven interesting shorter songs.
    The album starts of with the fast paced "New State Of Mind." They have been playing this tune recently after Yes concerts while the crowd leaves the theatre. Billy Sherwood's writing influence is present here, as this track has distinct ties to some of his other work with World Trade. The opening phrase, "Waiting for a moment while the moment has been waiting for a time" has also been played, right before the band takes the stage at their live concerts.
    "Open Your Eyes" is next. By now, most Yes fans are farmiliar with this track. Yesworld has some samples of this tune on their page.
    The next song, "Universal Garden" starts with an acoustic guitar bit from Steve Howe, quickly mixing with some new age sound effects and keyboard runs, before Jon Anderson starts singing. His lyrics are cosmic, as usual. After the first verse, the song proceeds into its catchy chorus and soon Jon's vocals are mixed with Chris Squire's to form harmonies. The song overall is a slow gentle song which speeds up during the chorus which is more mainstream.
    The fans who were lucky enough to attend Yes' opening night performance in Hartford have already heard "No Way We Can Lose." The song reminds me a little of "Saving My Heart" from 1991's "Union," but it's much better. It has that overall Squire/Sherwood written feel to it like "The More We Live" and "Love Conquers All," with the standard Billy Sherwood "help the world" message. It's a very catchy song which features brief harmonica segments (which Igor played in concert).
    My favorite song on the album is "Fortune Seller" which opens with alternating vocal harmonies and excellent bass work from Squire, before entering the first verse. The song is catchy, yet unpredictable, twisting and turning, alternating between vocals and instrumental runs. The song features excellent bass work from Squire throughout, stellar guitar work from Steve, and interesting keyboards from Khoroshev including an organ solo toward the end of the song (although in a recent interview, Steve Howe mentioned Igor is only on three or four songs on this album, this has to be one of them because I don't think Billy Sherwood has these kinds of chops.) As with all songs on this album, it has strong vocal harmonies, and like almost any other album in which Jon Anderson appears, it has the word "river." The only oddity is the "1-800" vocal sung by Billy through a vocoder that the song ends with.
    Chris wrote the lyrics to "Man In The Moon" back in the seventies and put them to Billy's base song. The lyrics were silly then and are still silly now. The song's verses are sung mostly by Chris with vocal harmonies from Jon and Billy. The song is a fast paced song, sounding a little like World Trade's "Dark Sky" music wise, but much more upbeat. It reminds me a little of some of the stuff on Genesis' "Calling All Stations." It does feature some excellent guitar work toward the end of the song from Steve.
    The next song, "Wonderlove" starts out gentle, before moving on to an interesting drum bit from Alan White, who is steady throughout as usual. It then moves into a more mainstream chorus. Steve has some nice fender work here during the chorus and some intersting guitar runs throughout. The songs break in the middle of the song is fast paced with some creative guitar work from Steve and some fast paced Jon vocals through a vocoder, before abruptly moving back to the standard beat and a guitar solo which sounds like Billy.
    "From The Balcony" is a sweet little song which seems to be performed only by Jon & Steve, with Steve playing an acoustic guitar and Jon singing some sweet vocals. A nice sweet gentle song like this fits perfectly here because of all the fast paced songs surrounding.
    Some new age keyboards introduce "Loveshine" before evolving into a poppy song, with simple lyrics. This one has the Billy Sherwood influence as well. Chris offers some nice vocal harmonies throughout, even alternating lead vocals in place. Like "Man In The Moon" the lyrics are silly in places "1-2-3-4-5-6-7, all good people." Jon also sings "I won't dream again until I dream again with you" which seems to come directly from Jon's "Earthmotherearth." Still, its a very catchy song which seems to grow on you.
    Jon continues to recycle material on "Somehow Someday." The opening song borrows the melody from "O'er" on Jon's "The Promise Ring," which he borrowed from "Boundaries" on "Animation." The song quiclkly moves into a different direction only going back to the "O'er" bit in other places, including a pretty acoustic interlude by Steve. Chris provides intersting vocal harmonies as he has throughout the album. The "O'er" melodies add to the song, which really wouldn't go anywhere without them.
    The album wraps up with "The Solution," another World Trade influenced song. The song reuses the "round and round we go" lyric from "Man In The Moon," but it's not as corny here. Again like many songs on this disc it alternates between slow, pop sections and fast pace breaks but the transformations aren't as unexpected with this one.
    "Open Your Eyes" overall cannot be classified into any category normally associated with Yes. It's not like the eighties Trevor Rabin based Yes, and it's not like the seventies classic Yes. It's a unique brand of Yes, but still recognizable with a kind of distinctiveness only associated with Yes. An extremely positive and uplifting album, Yes fan will get a lot out of it if they look at it with "open eyes!"
 

Matthew S. Putzel

Reviewed by Matthew Putzel. Copyright 1997 Matthew S. Putzel. No part of this review may be reprinted or copied to another web-site without permission from the author. Please notify me immediately if you see this review posted anywhere else.