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Yes: Heaven & Earth

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Frontiers Records
Released: 2014.07.16
Time:
 51:29
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Roy Thomas Baker
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.yesworld.com
Appears with: Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Believe Again (Davison, Howe) - 8:02
[2] The Game (Squire, Davison, Johnson) - 6:51
[3] Step Beyond (Howe, Davison) - 5:34
[4] To Ascend (Davison, White) - 4:43
[5] In a World of Our Own (Davison, Squire) - 5:20
[6] Light of the Ages (Davison) - 7:41
[7] It Was All We Knew (Howe) - 4:13
[8] Subway Walls (Davison, Downes) - 9:03

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Jon Davison – Lead And Backing Vocals, Acoustic Guitar on [1,6]
Steve Howe – Electric, Acoustic And Steel Guitars, Backing Vocals
Chris Squire – Bass, Backing Vocals
Geoff Downes – Keyboards, Computer Programming
Alan White – Drums, Percussion

Roy Thomas Baker – Producer
Billy Sherwood – Mixing, Engineering on Backing Vocals
Maor Appelbaum - Mastering
Roger Dean - Cover Art, Yes Logo
Dave Dysart - Engineer
Eric Corson - Engineer
Daniel Meron - Assistant Engineer
Kate Haynes - Sleeve Design
Rob Shanahan - Photography
Paul Silveira - Management

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded between 6 January-14 March 2014 at Neptune Studios (Los Angeles, California).



The first time Yes worked with producer Roy Thomas Baker was on 1979's ill-fated "Paris Sessions," a group of recordings that was aborted when Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman temporarily left the band. Different versions of some of the songs ended up on 1980's Drama, produced by Trevor Horn, while others appeared on various members' solo records. Heaven & Earth is Yes' first new recording since 2010's surprisingly good Fly from Here, helmed by Horn. Singer Benoit David, who replaced an ailing Anderson, has himself been displaced by Glass Hammer frontman Jon Davison. At least initially, the latter's voice is nearly a dead ringer for Anderson's. Listening to Heaven & Earth makes one wonder about what happened to the spirited playing and vigor of rediscovery displayed on Fly from Here. This is as far from prog rock as Yes has traveled; it's even further afield than the pop experiments on Talk or The Ladder. With Baker at the helm, what transpires is a slick, edgeless, badly executed attempt at adult-oriented pop, and for that, you need real hooks, and none exist here. Alan White's drums are almost exclusively used merely as rhythm tracks; their mix is ribbon thin. Chris Squire's fat, distorted, roiling bass, which has been a guiding signature of the band's sound since inception, is reined in so much it is nearly generic. Steve Howe's use of volume pedals and cross-channel shifting -- even in his fills -- shows little of his inventive playing acumen. Geoff Downes' keyboards are so soft, decorative, and "pretty," they displace whatever energy the arrangements might have called for. There are a few places where Yes does come across as something resembling its former self: the musical architecture in the (first) bridge in "Step Beyond," the brief crescendo-building in the middle section of "Light of the Ages," and in the longest and final track, "Subway Walls." On the latter, after a sleepy two-minute keyboard intro, Squire's bass reclaims some of its authority and drives White's syncopated beats as well as enjoyable head-to-head interplay between Howe and Downes engaging in knotty twists and turns, resulting in solid organ and guitar solos. But one track does not an album make. This set makes one yearn for (some of) the prog excesses of old; Heaven & Earth is the most creatively challenged and energetically listless record in Yes' catalog.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



For an encouraging number of “heritage acts” the urge to prove themselves dies hard. Take Yes, concocting Heaven And Earth four years shy of their 50th anniversary. Only Chris Squire remains from the 1968 line-up: nevertheless, Steve Howe joined before decimalisation, Alan White signed up when the Austin Allegro was still in “development”, and even Geoff Downes was conscripted before the advent of deely boppers. Only vocalist Jon Davison counts as a newbie, and he’s a real find: so similar to Jon Anderson that even his name only differs by two syllables. Are we sure it’s not actually him? You never see them together.

 Musically, Heaven And Earth is (generally) concise and catchy. Davison and Squire repeatedly sing “one step beyond” during Step Beyond without alluding to Madness, which is indicative of actual madness: but you’ve got to admire their balls. From a safe distance. Believe Again’s sing-song refrain is so simple that even Jimmy Crack Corn would feel slighted, but then Howe peels off one of his scalding scalar runs, and suddenly you’re bobbing on a topographic ocean. Likewise, Light Of The Ages is propitiously cut from much the same cape cloth as Nous Sommes Du Soleil.

recordcollectormag.com
© 2015 Diamond Publishing



The last men standing among the major 70s progressive rock bands are no longer the band they once were, with choirboy-on-acid singer Jon Anderson now replaced by Jon Davison. Despite the inevitable grumbling, Davison's been doing a good job on stage, and he captures Anderson's distinctive tones on record, too. Producer Roy Thomas Baker – best known for his work with Queen – gives the album a rich, 70s sound, and the material is solid enough, flavoured with Steve Howe's distinctive, rippling guitar and Geoff Downes' retro keyboard. What's missing is the ambitious scope of their heyday, and the vitality of the younger generation of progressive rock bands. At times, Heaven and Earth verges on the twee, and there's a distinct AOR flavour throughout, with only occasional flashes of the Yes of old. Only the closing mini-epic Subway Walls will excite fans of the original band, as Downes and Howe solo over a Chris Squire bass riff, building to a symphonic rock climax.

Tim Hall - Thursday 17 July 2014
© 2015 Guardian News and Media



It would be nearly impossible to find a band with a more checkered history than Yes. While they've had inconsistencies over their 46 years of existence, they've never wavered in their dedication to unpredictable, bizarre lineup changes, and the drama that comes with them. There's far too much of that to cover in this review, but let's just say that Yes were perhaps the 70's premiere prog rock act, with an incredible run from 1971 to 1974 that still holds up as some the very finest music the genre had to offer. But, like most of those prog rock bands, they couldn't keep it up for too long. Prog fell out of favour and the band tried their hand at new things, at one point even scoring a number one single with 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart'. Of course, that edition of Yes was dominated by Trevor Rabin and had little to do with the group that recorded Close To The Edge; but that's Yes for you. Even when it seems like they're cooked, they find a way to rebound. 

Case in point: when Jon Anderson suffered a severe asthma attack in 2008, the group unceremoniously booted him and replaced him with Benoit David, the frontman of a Yes tribute band that they found on YouTube. Keep in mind the fact Anderson was their singer for about 40 years; he appeared on every single Yes album except Drama. What's more, they recorded a new album with David - 2011's surprisingly decent Fly From Here, a sort sequel to Drama. David faired well, but he also got sick, so the next man in line was Jon Davison, the current singer of Tennessee's Glass Hammer, who looks and sounds he could be Anderson's son. And so the show goes on.

Heaven & Earth is Yes' latest album, and unlike Fly From Here, this one's all new material. The lineup: Chris Squire, Jon Davison, Alan White, Geoff Downes, and Steve Howe. Jon Davison is absolutely the right choice for the band. While Benoit David had to throw his voice to sound like Anderson, Davison just naturally sounds that way, and if anything his voice is even more ridiculous. He writes the same sort of obtuse, nonsensical lyrics that old Jon did. Naturally, they also saddled him with the majority of the songwriting duties (he's credited on seven of the eight songs - no other band member has more than three).


Heaven & Earth is an odd duck in the Yes discography. I mean, the Yes discography is full of odd ducks, but this time, they don't sound anything like classic Yes or the Rabin-era Yes. Some of these songs are on the longer side, but this is not progressive rock; if Starcastle was one degree of prog removed from Yes, then Heaven & Earth is about three degrees removed from Starcastle. This is a pure shot of Adult-Oriented Pop, and it's not completely without compare in the Yes catalogue - Talk, Open Your Eyes, and The Ladder had a number of limp, smiley-face pop songs, but there's even less edge on the songs here. It's almost as though the band tried to put together an album full songs like 'I've Seen All Good People', without the corresponding 'Your Move' bit that ties everything together.

Here's what this album sounds like. First, there's Downes, whose keyboards are all set to soft, angelic tones, playing bits that are either tasteful but ignorable, or really doodly ('Believe Again', 'Step Beyond'). Howe is usually somewhere in there, strumming something way in the background or taking some time to insert half-speed guitar runs in random spots. Davison sings his bits, often with Squire backing him up, and those are often the best (or prettiest) parts of the album - Davison sounds like he's about to burst into tears on half these songs. White plays these dinky rhythms that might as well be from a drum machine; he's so undermixed that you can barely hear him. And Squire is halfway asleep almost the entire time - when he's audible you can hear the dust rattling off his bass. Okay, so imagine what all that might sound like. Now, reduce the tempo by a good third or so. These songs are shockingly slow; even for a band of grandpas, there's so little energy that it feels as if everyone's going to spontaneously doze off at any moment. It's almost like an MC Escher house of lethargy; this shouldn't even be possible. Every single instrument seems to be quieter than every other instrument, and the songs feel like they're constantly slowing down, even though we know they aren't. Try getting one of these songs stuck in your head, then go back and listen to it again. What the hell?


And that's the thing - these songs will get stuck in your craw, for better or worse. It may be an easy album to tear down, but truthfully, I kind of like some of these songs. There's no energy and the performances are dry, but Davison certainly knows his way around a pretty melody; 'Light of the Ages' and 'To Ascend' have a certain ethereal beauty to them. Some of it is catchy - the delicate harmonies in 'The Game' and 'Step Beyond' are great, and at least the verses of 'Believe Again' are nice. Sometimes they even sort of benefit from the surreally listless tempos; if the album's concept is ascending to heaven, then these songs do make you feel like you're dying. Now none of them really work from start to finish, but at least most have something going for them, with the exception of 'In a World Of Our Own', which pretty much bites it, I'm afraid (my God, does the spectre of death loom hard over that one).


Still, it's not good news if you're a longstanding fan, particularly since Fly From Here at least featured a band that resembled Yes. The only glimmer here is the closing 'Subway Walls'; finally Squire plays more than a couple of notes at a time, and you can hear them shift time signatures and jam for a couple of minutes like they used to. Again, it's far too slow; like most of the other songs, you get the feeling that the song may have worked fine if only they had recorded it 20 years earlier. Like everything Yes have done in the last three decades, it's mostly just odd and frustrating. Even the most hardcore of Yes fans may forget that this exists in a couple months. Let's just stay tuned for the inevitable 50th anniversary Yes album, featuring a completely inaudible Squire and White, the return of Jon Anderson, Wakeman's grandson, and the ghost of Peter Banks. You can't really rule it out, can you?

Nick Reed , July 2nd, 2014
TheQuietus.com



Heaven & Earth is the twenty-first studio album from the English progressive rock band Yes, first released on 16 July 2014 on Frontiers Records. It is their first album with singer Jon Davison in the band's line-up. It was produced by Roy Thomas Baker, who first worked with the band on recording sessions in 1979, and mixed by former member Billy Sherwood.

Upon its release, Heaven & Earth peaked at number 20 in the UK, the band's highest chart performance since their 1994 album Talk. It also entered the US chart at number 26.

The album received a mixed reaction from critics. In his review for Allmusic, Thom Jurek rated the album two stars out of five. He thought the band lacked the "spirited playing and vigor of rediscovery displayed on Fly from Here", and described the album as a "slick, edgeless, badly executed attempt at adult-oriented pop, and for that, you need real hooks, and none exist here". He did however, praise passages from "Step Beyond", "Light of the Ages", and "Subway Walls".

In a mixed review, The Quietus highly praised Davison, describing him as "absolutely the right choice for the band [...] Davison sings his bits, often with Squire backing him up, and those are often the best (or prettiest) parts of the album - Davison sounds like he's about to burst into tears on half these songs", but criticized the lack of energy, especially from White and Squire, and the tempo of the songs considered too slow.

Wikipedia.org
 

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