Label: InsideOut/Sony Music
Release date: October 1, 2021
Production: Steve Howe
Album length: 61.35 min
Genre: Progressive Rock
Rating: 7.0/10
Plenty of fans of the legendary English prog pioneers Yes took the news in 2015 with disbelief: the band would carry on playing live and making records without the late founding bassist Chris Squire. On his deathbed, Squire wished for the symphonic prog-rock voyage through the “cosmic meadows” to continue with his longtime collaborator and friend, the American bassist/guitarist Billy Sherwood. That made Yes a “legacy” band, much like Gong, Soft Machine and Chicago, to name a few related prog and jazz-rock outfits that are still going strong despite the absence of founding members.
Live, the Squire-less experiment has worked convincingly, since Sherwood has a Rickenbacker bass style and a singing voice very close to his late friend’s. The new, twenty-first studio album, »The Quest«, is another story. It’s the first one without a single original Yes member, and the guitar maestro Steve Howe has taken the (unofficial) leader’s scepter. On top of a good many of the songwriting ideas, he also handled production of the new record. »The Quest« is also the first Yes album since »Magnification« (2001) to feature an orchestra, though this experiment didn’t turn out as well as many fans of this long-running band would have liked.
By usual Yes standards, »The Quest« is a pretty average album, with roughly equal amounts of good and bad, tipping slightly toward the latter. You can tell right away that the new incarnation of Yes tried hard to blend the traditional with some new sonic elements, but it didn’t quite pull it off. After a strong opening stretch, the album quickly turns watery thanks to a flimsy production that lacks energy, overly favoring Howe’s guitar exploits at the expense of Downes’ keyboards. Meanwhile, the frequent slow, acoustic moments and the shortage of interesting songwriting ideas make the good impression from the first two tracks melt away fast.
It might be unfair to name Howe as the designated culprit for »The Quest« ranking among the less interesting achievements in this cult band’s more than fifty-year history. Still, the fact is that of the compositions bearing his stamp, only »Dare to Know« truly delivers from start to finish. On top of that, most of his guitar lines lost their old sparkle long ago. The guy is now just a pale shadow of the great innovator who turned Yes into a prog-rock superpower in 1971.
Downes, with his varied arsenal of keyboards that on most tracks sound more like the eighties than the seventies, often gets kind of “lost” in the production, squeezed between the guitar and the orchestral arrangements. White is solid on drums once again, although in places Sherwood’s old buddy Jay Schellen stepped in on percussion due to health reasons. Sherwood, who played the Rickenbacker bass on just one track, is a decent “stand-in” for Squire, but his songwriting ideas don’t excite. Jon Davison is still the perfect “clone” of the legendary Jon Anderson, and he can also boast of co-writing the better compositions on »The Quest«.
As mentioned, »The Quest« opens on an encouraging and thrilling note with the epic, ecologically minded »The Ice Bridge«, released as the first single from the album. After some initial hesitation, Yes had to credit Francis Monkman (ex-Curved Air, Sky) as a co-writer, since it turned out the central section was “borrowed” from Monkman’s “forgotten” composition »The Dawn of an Era«. The pompous fanfare opening, which recalls ELP more than Yes, gives way to a completely recognizable section with a stirring vocal performance from Jon Davison and the characteristic interplay of guitar and keyboard harmonies. What follows is a subtle build into a proper epic adventure, with plenty of time changes and the melodic arrangements typical of this long-lived band. With this piece, Yes managed to create a song that can be counted among their classics, so some fans had pretty high expectations going into the release of »The Quest«.
»Dare to Know«, the second single from the album, manages to keep up the good impression of its predecessor. It’s one of the few compositions on »The Quest« that completely worked out for its author Howe, and one where the band and the accompanying orchestra build a convincing rapport. It features mighty vocal harmonies in a duet between Davison and Howe, who is otherwise a mediocre singer when left to his own devices (more on that later), ideally blended with subtle guitar lines and rich orchestral arrangements.
The melancholic »Minus the Man« can’t really be filed under either the thrilling or the bad moments of »The Quest«. It marks the start of the album’s decline, as the initial energy fades and the weak points of the current Yes lineup come to the surface. The excellent vocal harmonies with Davison in the lead role deserve praise, but on this “slow” piece, with lyrics about the ideal balance between eternal consciousness and technology, repetitive guitar lines and predictable arrangements unfortunately start to take over.
On »Leave Well Alone«, which runs at least a minute too long, Howe plays the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument, while Davison tries out an unusually low vocal range for him. The main riff is pure Howe, while Downes’ synths sound like they came straight out of the eighties. The first two sections come off decently, but the third quickly turns watery and drags, thanks to a repetitive guitar riff that Howe repeats “ad infinitum”.
The acoustic-leaning »The Western Edge« features a vocal duet between Davison and Sherwood, who sound like cloned twins of Jon Anderson and Chris Squire. As a whole, the song falls into the “average” category, which is actually not bad considering it came from merging two completely different songwriting ideas. Davison’s ballad-style »Future Memories« could just as well have come out as a solo piece of his. Besides Jon’s singing, it has only an acoustic guitar and steel guitar backing, plus Howe’s occasional backing vocals.
»Music to My Ears«, a typical Howe songwriting creation on which the whole band sounds a little bored, has a pretty cheap chorus and lots of repetitive guitar lines, while the keyboards in the background are mostly “for decoration”. »A Living Island« is the last serious attempt on »The Quest« to create an interesting, adventurous composition on the level of past Yes classics, with a few shy and not very convincing flirtations with the evergreens »And You And I« and »Awaken«. The end result is a solid piece that wraps up the “regular” part of the album decently, though it would be hard to give it the status of a Yes classic. It’s the only track on »The Quest« whose lyrics touch on the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences, although it would have been better for Yes, like a whole slew of other bands, not to rehash that subject until this global nightmare is over.
The second disc is completely superfluous. It holds three separate bonus tracks that, quality-wise, could be called leftover material, and nobody would miss them. All three are further proof that over the years Howe has become an old-fashioned, static songwriter who recycles some seriously stale ideas. The same goes for most of his guitar lines. If these were his solo pieces, there wouldn’t be any major complaints, but as it is, most Yes fans will quickly forget the second disc. The energetically rather empty »Sister Sleeping Soul«, with additional songwriting credit going to Davison, sounds like a slightly saccharine serenade to a sleeping beloved. The acoustic-leaning mantra of »Mystery Tour«, a very belated tribute to the unforgettable Beatles, falls into the “you can’t be serious, but it’s real” or “cheesy to the tenth power” category. And »Damaged World«, thanks to Howe’s solo vocals, can even compete for the title of worst song in Yes history so far.
Without the three tracks on the second disc, which most people will pretend don’t exist, »The Quest« is still a decent album by present-day Yes standards. But anyone who expected something even close to their masterpieces from the seventies will be bitterly disappointed. Sadly, the bad elements of the current Yes incarnation often outweigh the good, and after a good opening stretch, »The Quest«, with its total dilution of ideas and arrangements and its production “flimsiness”, turns out to be yet another one of those albums that make some fans wish Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman would rejoin their old buddies as soon as possible. As for which Yes incarnation would make the more interesting and more “Yes-sy” album right now – the “official” one under Howe’s leadership, or the “renegade” one that includes Trevor Rabin alongside Anderson and Wakeman – there’s probably no doubt anymore.
Author: Peter “Dr. ProgRock” Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
CD 1 (47:51)
1. The Ice Bridge (7:03) :
– a. Eyes East
– b. Race Against Time
– c. Interaction
2. Dare to Know (5:58) :
– a. New Journey
– b. Sympathy of Sound
– c. The Lost Cord
3. Minus the Man (5:35)
4. Leave Well Alone (8:08) :
– a. Across the Border
– b. Not for Nothing
– c. Wheels
5. The Western Edge (4:25)
6. Future Memories (5:10)
7. Music to My Ears (4:41)
8. A Living Island (6:51) :
– a. Brave the Storm
– b. Wake Up
– c. We Will Remember
CD 2 (13:44)
1. Sister Sleeping Soul (4:50)
2. Mystery Tour (3:35)
3. Damaged World (5:19)
Lineup:
Jon Davison – vocals
Steve Howe – guitar
Geoff Downes – keyboards, Hammond
Billy Sherwood – bass guitar
Alan White – drums
Guest musician:
Jay Schellen – additional percussion
