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Albums that deserve a second chance
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Jan 24, 2013, 10:13
Re: Albums that deserve a second chance
Jan 24, 2013, 09:49
Squid Tempest wrote:
Moon Cat wrote:
Yes - Tormato.

Seemingly occupying the realm of the unloved amongst many Yes fans, but I enjoy it myself. Ok, it doesn't hit the magisterial heights of "Close to the Edge" or "Fragile", but I'm fond of it, especially as it has "Don't Kill the Whale" on it, which is a TUNE!

Magnum - The Eleventh Hour.

Seen as an also-ran in the canon of the terminally unfashionable Brummie Pompsters, sandwiched as it is between the mighty "Chase the Dragon & "On a Storyteller's Night", I love some of the songs on this. It's relegation to 'meh'gnum status seems to be as a result of its stodgy (self) production, which indeed doesn't serve some of the songs well. But, as a collection of pomp-rockness, The Eleventh Hour has some top tunes I think!


Should I try Tormato then, or do you think I might recoil with Yesnobbishness?


It's got Onward as well. Worth it for that alone of you like Soon and To Be Over. They were great on that tour and the one before so while it may not be a classic Yes lp they still had "it" and it is better than anything with R*b*n on it. It actually sounds remarkably like everything they have been releasing since the mid 90s. It is almost like this way of making music was preserved in aspic while they went off to make some money and then they came back to it as if nothing had happened.

The main thing wrong with Tormato is that it is a bit safe and there are no moments of genius/madness that you still had on Going For The One. It also sounds like that they were scuppered by the use of some inappropriate studio toys. The drum sound is horrible and the mix is really unintentinally stupid. Thre are some flashes of the old daring but it's like they wanted to be about voices and rhythm and to pretend that they weren't a band of vituosi at all. To do that the songs would need to be stronger and this doesn't have the material that say Wind and Wuthering has. It was like the 80s had come early for Yes in that you can hear exactly where they are headed - for the mid Atlantic and stripped of English eccentricity. When you look at who passed through the ranks after that it is not hard to imagine what Chris Squire's thought processes were. It was all about simplifying things and getting another Roundabout or Your Move on US radio. Which he / they did so I guess he knew what he was doing! So it is a bit of a sad sounding record but with some great bits.
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