Yes: Tormato

Once upon a time, I got really heavy into Yes and prog rock in particular. While my tastes have somewhat changed over the past few years, I still get a profound sense of enjoyment out of listening to some of Yes’s stuff, and while not all of it is particularly great, there’s some truly classic stuff to be found – you just need to do some substantial digging.

Tormato is an album that holds a special meaning to me. Back in January 2005, my then-current girlfriend, a group of her friends, and I all went to New York City for the day. While I’d been to NYC several times by that point, it was always with a specific goal in mind; this time, the goal was to just go and see whatever we wanted to see. Inevitably, we ended up doing some shopping, and while in a record store (no guesses who wanted to go there), I stumbled across Tormato. Now, I’d already had Fragile, which I hadn’t really listened to, and my knowledge of Yes was limited to ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ and ‘Roundabout’, both of which I knew of but didn’t really know. Anyway, something about Tormato appealed to me, and so I bought it on a whim and promptly forgot about it.

Needless to say, it sort of became my soundtrack for the next month or so: my girlfriend went away to Spain for a semester, and I remember having one last dinner with her and her parents, and then she was whisked off to the airport. The entire drive home, I listened to Tormato, which finally brings me around to my review and, despite any personal attachments I might have to the album, I’m going to review it within the context of the rest of Yes’s output. Which, when you become aware with their discography, means that Tormato sits uncomfortably at odds with everything else they’ve done. Recorded after a revival of interest following their Going For The One album, Tormato was a more concentrated effort to produce conventional songs instead of the long and winding epics that, while being the defining characteristic of progressive rock, tended to meander. (For instance, Tales From Topographic Oceans, a sprawling four-record with one song generously spread out over one side of an LP – so, each song was about 20 minutes in length.) It was also designed to get more radioplay, which had been a major factor in the renewed interest in the first place: Going For The One was more concise and compact, making for a better listen for people with short attention spans yet who still couldn’t quite get into punk or New Wave.

Tormato, unfortunately, suffers from being too undercooked. There are numerous excellent ideas here, and some of Jon Anderson’s lyrics are quite good, but it all sounds rushed, and there’s no cohesion between Rick Wakeman’s synthesizer and Steve Howe’s guitar. On top of that, Chris Squire uses an unusual sound on his bass guitar that makes it sound as if it was being run through an amplifier connected to a deep-sea diver’s microphone, resulting in a strange, bubbly sound. It may have been alright for a song or two, but when used on all eight songs, it becomes tiresome, even if he is playing some inventive and interesting lines.

‘Future Times / Rejoice’ is the first song on the album, and is a call to arms of sorts with a pounding military snare drum and a synth line that resembles a triumphant fanfare. The second part of the song is a more conventional attempt at a song, and while the six minute total isn’t as adventurous as earlier stuff, it is aggressive and charging, which is more than can be said about the next track, ‘Don’t Kill The Whale’. A misguided attempt at creating some kind of eco-conscious / pseudo-disco amalgam, the song falls flat on its tail and blows all sorts of subtlety out of the water with is high-pitched whale vocalisations and downright annoying synthesizer solo. Unbelievably, this was released as a single, though it did little to raise Yes’s stakes at a time when Yes was seen as overblown and unbearable.

‘Madrigal’, named after the musical form from 16th and 17th century Europe, is a delightful and brief ballad, with harpsichords and 12-string acoustic guitars galore, yet is let down by an odd set of lyrics (sung in an unbelievably high register, even by Jon Anderson’s standards) about an encounter with celestial beings. Uh huh. ‘Release, Release’ is far more effective, as is ‘Arriving UFO’, but there are certain moments that make them worthwhile, instead of the songs as a whole: in the former, it’s the extended drum solo (complete with cheering audience, much like Aerosmith’s version of ‘Train Kept A Rollin” – speaking as a one-time drummer, I have to ask: do bands include cheering audiences on drum solos just to keep the audience interested? I get that drum solos aren’t that interesting to begin with, but the cheering, I feel, just adds false excitement) and the cracking riff, while in the latter it’s the unusual synth noises and Squire’s masterful bass work.

Then comes probably the worst song on the album: ‘Circus Of Heaven’. Ugh. Written entirely by Anderson, the song just squeals with tweeness; it’s too cutesy for its own good, with lyrics that meander and explain very little. The backing is far too busy, with guitar lines and synth doodles attempting to intertwine but just end up making things sound constricted and claustrophobic. On top of that, Anderson’s son gets a vocal appearance at the end, sounding like a posh Oliver Twist recounting all the joys that the circus of Heaven had to offer. Someone pass me the vomit bag, I think I’m about to — but wait, what’s next? ‘Onward’, a ballad penned solely by Squire, is by far the best song on the album, because it’s neither treacly nor overly sentimental. It’s a love song, through and through, but there’s a certain airiness to it that makes it feel like it’s not meant to bring a tear to the eye. A lovely orchestra, which is buried deep in the mix so as not to be too banal.

‘On The Silent Wings Of Freedom’ follows, and, like opener ‘Future Times / Rejoice’, is a charging rocker that is more lean and nimble than anything Yes had done in years. The rhythm section truly drives the song along, with Alan White’s drumming twisting and turning through various time signatures, while Squire has finally dropped that annoying underwater effect on his bass, and Howe’s guitar squeals with a raw passion that had been absent from most of the album. Even Anderson’s vocals and Wakeman’s synths aren’t too obtrusive, with the latter even getting in a rambunctiously distracted solo toward the end. It’s eight minutes of pure prog rock streamlined to be more effective in the days when prog rock was viewed as a dead dinosaur, yet contains enough jamming to remind you that Yes are truly masterful musicians. If only the album could have been as good as this track, then we would have been spared one of the less memorable entries into Yes’s vast discography.

But alas, the blasphemy was only just beginning.

Essential listening: Future Times / Rejoice, Onward, On The Silent Wings Of Freedom