Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Yes
Label: Arista Records
Released: 1991
Duration: 65:04
Rating: 2.5/5
Imagined in fiction, or say you’re a passing observer who plants yourself at a spot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, “Union” is the record that geographically united East and West Yes. So where were we? Aha. The Western – real, or “American” Yes (based in California) were represented in 1990 by Kaye, Squire, Rabin and White, while the Eastern – British “not-real Yes” were united in the project “Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe” (A/B/W/H), which in 1989 also put out a self-titled studio album under that banner, with help from the superior bassist Tony Levin, who also appears on “Union”. Both lineups had their own material. Well, fate evidently had other plans, and the agents managed to lobby both sides into getting together under one roof. Anyway, the masses’ expectations shot up again, since this was a brand-new supergroup lineup made up of renowned players who master their craft down to the last detail. So it was even possible to “piously” hope that an album was in the works that would flirt with the Yes legacy of the seventies.
Damn! Of course, if you put the fundamentals under the microscope, there was really no basis for anything like that. All the heads in the studio were on different frequencies. Steve Howe, who had just come out of Asia and GTR, had freshly learned how to play short, fiery rock licks; the album “Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe” (1989) radiated a light art-pop approach with a bit more daring progressiveness, unlike “Big Generator” (1987), while Western Yes were still living and dreaming deeply the dreams of their album “Big Generator” (1987). “Union” as such is an interesting, liberal mix of both camps, which isn’t necessarily the key to the excellence you look for when crafting a record.
There’s almost 70 minutes of music, fifteen tracks, and democracy has been served. How? A few tracks are stretched out just enough that every musician gets the chance to have their say in them. “Union” is a record that’s still clearly written straight for fans of eighties Yes. Howe is definitely present here (the acoustic instrumental Masquerade, though light years away from the witty explorations of The Clap), which of course you can’t miss in the songs. If you want recognizability within the otherwise limited AOR genre, put Howe in the band and you get a winning formula (Asia). The Yes songs on “Union” got that same kind of adventurous, exploratory extension. The two who probably had to swallow their egos the most on this record were Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman, otherwise guys who need an enormous amount of room for themselves, much like Howe, but he had already proven himself the most adaptable of the three to the changes of the new decade. In short, Wakeman made no secret of his disappointment with the record and the project, and in later statements he liked to scornfully call it “Onion”, claiming it’s as “headless” as “Tormato” (1978) and that the very thought of it always brings him to tears (hence the onion).
That it was an out-and-out commercial stunt is also proven by the gigantic “Union” tour, on which Yes played on stage inside a special “revolving” setup, with Anderson surrounded by both keyboardists and “floating” in the middle, while both drum kits were lowered and raised during the show.
“Union” is a commercial, instantly catchy “art pop” album that carries over into progressive solo spots we get to hear again, since Steve Howe is with us, while at the same time it’s held together by the tightness of Rabin’s riff-driven approach. Definitely no “fragmentation” in the songs. The guys stick to polished, expressive motifs. “Union” suffers from a lack of consistency, since there were way too many heads in the studio, so there were too many ideas as well, and no clear direction or vision for the record to carry. That’s why the liberalism, or plurality, hurts it in this case. You can feel it’s been glued together from little pieces and that it isn’t a band in the classic sense of the word playing on it. “Union” is simply more of a project, artificially and deliberately pieced together, that should have stayed Union and not Yes! But a record is clearly easier to turn into cash if you slap the word Yes on it! Hence the bait that fooled plenty of people into buying this record when it came out, only to curse it up and down when they didn’t hear what they were looking for. Anyway, on that front it’s a record far more in line with what A/B/W/H were doing at the time than with Yes featuring Rabin, and it would have been better had “Union” been a new A/B/W/H record rather than a Yes one.
Lineup
Jon Anderson – vocals
Trevor Rabin – guitar, vocals
Steve Howe – guitar
Chris Squire – bass guitar
Tony Levin – bass guitar
Tony Kaye – keyboards
Rick Wakeman – keyboards
Alan White – drums
Bill Bruford – drums
Production
Jonathon Ellias
Tracklist
1. I Would Have Waited Forever (6:32)
2. Shock to the System (5:09)
3. Masquerade (2:18)
4. Lift Me Up (6:30)
5. Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day (5:18)
6. Saving My Heart (4:42)
7. Miracle of Life (7:30)
8. Silent Talking (4:01)
9. The More We Live – Let Go (4:34)
10. Angkor Wat (5:24)
11. Dangerous (Look in the Light of What You’re Searching For) (3:39)
12. Holding On (5:24)
13. Evensong (0:52)
14. Take the Water to the Mountain (3:10)
15. Give and Take
