inelegy
2014-07-22 20:13:49 UTC
One month since the album leaked and my 'legit' copy of _Heaven & Earth_ has arrived.
Of course, it sounds better than the glitchy leaked version, but my opinion of this album has remained the same as my first-listen review: This is pretty limp stuff. The production and mixing -- particularly the drums -- is among the poorest I've been exposed to in a prog context.
Ultimately, only "To Ascend" and "Subway Walls" have any lasting value to me. Everything else falls into varying degrees of mediocrity.
Beyond the uninspired songwriting, there's a lot of decoration but little definition in the music and production. Instruments don't pop or exist within a defined space in the mix. To its credit, the problem isn't like most (all?) Billy Sherwood mixes (where everything sounds claustrophobically squashed together and lifeless) there is a hint of clarity, but not much in the way of dynamics.
The other day I was juxtaposing it with Steven Wilson's recent stereo mix of CTTE. The amazing thing about that album (in any of its forms) is the space it has. There are the beautiful holes in the mix that give the musicians room to move. It doesn't sound busy despite the fact that there is a lot going on. Every instrument exists in its own space and the light shines on a given instrument when it needs to.
The mix for H&E, on the other hand, sounds busy but it really isn't -- there's just a lot of democracy to the mix. No one instrument ever really rises and falls at any given moment. There's never any dramatic give and take between the players which is probably because no one is bringing anything particularly interesting to the table in the first place.
Put it this way: If CTTE is mixed like an afternoon of brilliant sunshine and with puffy clouds that sometimes cut long shadows through the all of the radiance, H&E is mixed like high noon on an overcast day: flat light with no shadows, no clouds, just blindness and blandness.
Dozens of listens now allow me to rank this album amongst other albums in the Yes discography. I'd place it above _Union_ and _Open Your Eyes_ but below _Fly From Here_, _Keystudio_, and _Tormato_. And like these albums, my opinion will not improve over time.
Bad, you see, simply stays bad -- time will not change that. There's nothing here that, given time, will grow on me. Nothing which isn't immediately apparent that holds the key to unlocking long-term listening enjoyment. This is simply incredibly flat, polite, non-dynamic, uninspired music that without the Yes brand name on it would be regarded as a forgettable release by a third-tier prog band. With the Yes brand name, however, it'll be regarded as another forgettable album in a long string of legacy-diluting albums by a band that is so broken and faded that it's becoming difficult to remember why they were once regarded as great.
Which reminds me, my girlfriend in in her mid-twenties and (before meeting me) had no knowledge of Yes. She grew up listening to ska, punk, and electopop (like The Postal Service). To her great credit and immense patience, as part of the hazard of being with me, she has grown to enjoy '70s progressive rock. "Starless" and _Lizard_ by King Crimson count as favorites.
Despite being born the year that _Big Generator_ was released, her favorite Yes pieces are all main-sequence items. In particular, she regards "The Revealing Science Of God" as one of the greatest pieces of music she's ever heard, at least in a rock context. I'm not sure if I can agree with her about that, but it's encouraging. ;-)
I've shown her photos of Yes playing to tens of thousands of people in the '70s and she finds it difficult to believe that the band/brand that currently calls itself Yes used to fill stadiums and be regarded in the same pantheon as Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd.
Or that they could still fill large arenas in the '80s, just as assuredly as U2 or Rush or Duran Duran. In the context of today, she only knows them as a bunch of has-beens playing small theaters, clubs, and state fairs, who can still get a couple of their songs played on bad classic rock radio stations.
Her opinion is a fair assessment.
I bring this up only to (1) gloat that I have youthful girlfriend, and (2) point out that there's something to stopping while you're ahead.
Of course, it sounds better than the glitchy leaked version, but my opinion of this album has remained the same as my first-listen review: This is pretty limp stuff. The production and mixing -- particularly the drums -- is among the poorest I've been exposed to in a prog context.
Ultimately, only "To Ascend" and "Subway Walls" have any lasting value to me. Everything else falls into varying degrees of mediocrity.
Beyond the uninspired songwriting, there's a lot of decoration but little definition in the music and production. Instruments don't pop or exist within a defined space in the mix. To its credit, the problem isn't like most (all?) Billy Sherwood mixes (where everything sounds claustrophobically squashed together and lifeless) there is a hint of clarity, but not much in the way of dynamics.
The other day I was juxtaposing it with Steven Wilson's recent stereo mix of CTTE. The amazing thing about that album (in any of its forms) is the space it has. There are the beautiful holes in the mix that give the musicians room to move. It doesn't sound busy despite the fact that there is a lot going on. Every instrument exists in its own space and the light shines on a given instrument when it needs to.
The mix for H&E, on the other hand, sounds busy but it really isn't -- there's just a lot of democracy to the mix. No one instrument ever really rises and falls at any given moment. There's never any dramatic give and take between the players which is probably because no one is bringing anything particularly interesting to the table in the first place.
Put it this way: If CTTE is mixed like an afternoon of brilliant sunshine and with puffy clouds that sometimes cut long shadows through the all of the radiance, H&E is mixed like high noon on an overcast day: flat light with no shadows, no clouds, just blindness and blandness.
Dozens of listens now allow me to rank this album amongst other albums in the Yes discography. I'd place it above _Union_ and _Open Your Eyes_ but below _Fly From Here_, _Keystudio_, and _Tormato_. And like these albums, my opinion will not improve over time.
Bad, you see, simply stays bad -- time will not change that. There's nothing here that, given time, will grow on me. Nothing which isn't immediately apparent that holds the key to unlocking long-term listening enjoyment. This is simply incredibly flat, polite, non-dynamic, uninspired music that without the Yes brand name on it would be regarded as a forgettable release by a third-tier prog band. With the Yes brand name, however, it'll be regarded as another forgettable album in a long string of legacy-diluting albums by a band that is so broken and faded that it's becoming difficult to remember why they were once regarded as great.
Which reminds me, my girlfriend in in her mid-twenties and (before meeting me) had no knowledge of Yes. She grew up listening to ska, punk, and electopop (like The Postal Service). To her great credit and immense patience, as part of the hazard of being with me, she has grown to enjoy '70s progressive rock. "Starless" and _Lizard_ by King Crimson count as favorites.
Despite being born the year that _Big Generator_ was released, her favorite Yes pieces are all main-sequence items. In particular, she regards "The Revealing Science Of God" as one of the greatest pieces of music she's ever heard, at least in a rock context. I'm not sure if I can agree with her about that, but it's encouraging. ;-)
I've shown her photos of Yes playing to tens of thousands of people in the '70s and she finds it difficult to believe that the band/brand that currently calls itself Yes used to fill stadiums and be regarded in the same pantheon as Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd.
Or that they could still fill large arenas in the '80s, just as assuredly as U2 or Rush or Duran Duran. In the context of today, she only knows them as a bunch of has-beens playing small theaters, clubs, and state fairs, who can still get a couple of their songs played on bad classic rock radio stations.
Her opinion is a fair assessment.
I bring this up only to (1) gloat that I have youthful girlfriend, and (2) point out that there's something to stopping while you're ahead.