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Yes: Relayer

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Atlantic Records
Released: 1974
Time:
 40:28
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Yes, Eddie Offord
Rating: *******... (7/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: yesworld.com
Appears with: Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire
Purchase date: 1996.06.27
Price in €: 10,99



 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Gates of Delirium (Anderson/Howe/Moraz/Squire/White) - 21:55
[2] Sound Chaser (Yes) - 9:25
[3] To Be Over (Yes) - 9:08

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Jon Anderson - Vocals, Producer
Steve Howe - Guitar, Vocals, Producer
Chris Squire - Bass, Vocals, Producer
Patrick Moraz - Keyboards, Producer
Alan White - Drums, Producer

Roger Dean - Design, Illustrations, Cover Design
Eddie Offord - Producer
Jean Ristori - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Track 1 is loosely based on Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace."

Carnivorous, alcohol-loving Rick Wakeman was always at oddswith the health-food mindset of the other Yes members, though his brash pomp was at the heart of their sound. When he was replaced by Patrick Moraz (late of '70s prog obscurites Refugee and Mainhorse), it freed the band up to dive headlonginto the ethereal, spiritually oriented themes that had always been Jon Anderson's stock in trade. Thus, RELAYER consists of three extended cuts (the 22-minute "Gates of Delirium"was once jokingly assessed as the reason punk became necessary). Even on the inside cover's band photo, the Yes boys look like they're in the middle of a prayer meeting. The elaborately structured arrangements take the band's loftier side to previously unreachable heights (even compared to TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS). However, it's all done so skilfully (with much credit going to Moraz) that RELAYER draws you in to its complex sonic web and fully captivates you.



Possibly Yes's most musically adventurous album, 1974's Relayer is their only studio recording to feature avant-garde keyboardist Patrick Moraz (temporarily replacing Rick Wakeman, who was off making portentous solo albums at the time). Whereas Wakeman, for all his pyrotechnic wizardry, was a musical conservative, Moraz's modern jazz background adds a welcome dash of improvisational freedom to the band's tightly controlled sound. The guiding spirits of Joe Zawinul and Miles Davis surely hover in the background as Moraz and guitarist Steve Howe trade discords in "Sound Chaser," or when the 22-minute epic "The Gates of Delirium" apparently dissolves into instrumental chaos augmented by dissonant tape effects, or on the subsequent resolution ("Soon"), one of the band's finest moments. Following the bloated excess of Tales from Topographic Oceans from the year before, Relayer impresses with its condensed visceral intensity. A Yes album not to be overlooked.

Mark Walker - Amazon.co.uk



Yes had fallen out of critical favor with Tales from Topographic Oceans, a two-record set of four songs that reviewers found indulgent. But they had not fallen out of the Top Ten, and so they had little incentive to curb their musical ambitiousness. Relayer, released 11 months after Tales, was a single-disc, two-song album, its music organized into suites that alternated abrasive, rhythmically dense instrumental sections featuring solos for the various instruments with delicate vocal and choral sections featuring poetic lyrics devoted to spiritual imagery. Such compositions seemed intended to provide an interesting musical landscape over which the listener might travel, and enough Yes fans did that to make Relayer a Top Ten, gold-selling hit, though critics continued to complain about the lack of concise, coherent song structures.

William Ruhlmann - All Music Guide
 

 L y r i c s


The Gates of Delirium

Stand and fight we do consider
Reminded of an inner pact between us
That's seen as we go
And ride there
In motion
To fields in debts of honor
Defending

Stand the marchers soaring talons,
Peaceful lives will not deliver freedom,
Fighting we know,
Destroy oppression
The point to reaction
As leaders look to you
Attacking

Choose and renounce throwing chains to the floor.
Kill or be killing faster sins correct the flow.
Casting giant shadows off vast penetrating force
To alter via the war that seen
As friction spans the spirits wrath ascending (slowly) to redeem.

Wars that shout in screams of anguish,
Power spent passion bespoils our soul receiver,
Surely we know.
In glory
We rise to offer,
Create our freedom,
A word we utter,
A word.

Words cause our banner, victorious our day.
Will silence be promised as violence display?
The curse increased we fight the power
And live by it by day.
Our gods awake in thunderous roars,
And guide the leaders' hand in paths of glory to the cause.

Listen, should we fight forever
Knowing as we do know fear destroys?
Listen, should we leave our children?
Listen, our lives stare in silence;
Help us now.

Listen, your friends have been broken,
They tell us of your poison; now we know.
Kill them, give them as they give us.
Slay them, burn their childrens' laughter
On to hell.

The fist will run, grasp metal to gun.
The spirit sings in crashing tones,
We gain the battle drum.
Our cries will shrill, the air will moan and crash into the dawn.
The pen won't stay the demon's wings,
The hour approaches pounding out the Devil's sermon.

Soon, oh soon the light,
Pass within and soothe this endless night
And wait here for you,
Our reason to be here.

Soon, oh soon the time,
All we move to gain will reach and calm;
Our heart is open,
Our reason to be here.

Long ago, set into rhyme.
Soon, oh soon the light,
Ours to shape for all time,
Ours the right;
The sun will lead us,
Our reason to be here.

Soon, oh soon the light,
Ours to shape for all time,
Ours the right;
The sun will lead us,
Our reason to be here.


Sound Chaser

Faster moment spent spread tales of change within the sound,
Counting form through rhythm electric freedom
Moves to counter-balance stars expound our conscience
All to know and see the look in your eyes.

Passing time will reach as nature relays to set the scene,
New encounters spark a true fruition,
Guiding lines we touch them, our bodies balance out the waves
As we accelerate our days to the look in your eyes.

From the moment I reached out to hold, I felt a sound,
And what touches our soul slowly moves as touch rebounds.
And to know that tempo will continue
Lost in trance of dances as rhythm takes another turn,
As is my want, I only reach to look in your eyes.


To Be Over

We go sailing down the calming streams,
Drifting endlessly by the bridge.
To be over, we will see, to be over.

Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays;
Always doors to lock away your dreams.
Think it over, time will heal your fear, think it over.
Balance the thoughts that release within you.

Childlike soul dreamer.
One journey, one to seek and see in every light
Do open true pathways away.

Carrying closer,
Go gently, holding doors will open every way
You wander true pathways away.

After all your soul will still surrender.
After all don't doubt your part,
Be ready to be loved.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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