Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *
Evolution is a wondrous event to behold, revolution can, in part, be just as thrilling; especially when it means the old guard whose ideas have come to a natural end are swept away. To place both progressions into the same album though can seem as though for some, that the world has been turned upside down and that Progressive has just a little bit of its enormous and well-meaning heart.
Yes, arguably the long standing Prog Rock band still going from the initial burst of creative freedom in which Prog bought to the world, somehow have possibly released the worst record of their sustained career.
Heaven & Earth, the mythical realms of understanding between humanity and the Gods, has more in common with the kitchen sink and the drain despite guitarist Steve Howe writing a sublime track in It Was All We Knew. For the rest of the album, it is more of a case of the uninspiring rubbing shoulders with the distinguished bland. Bar the aforementioned track, each song lacks the big thrill that you expect from Yes, the lack of sparkle is so disappointing that it is possible to hear a Kaftan coat from the 1970s weep in frustration.
When the best thing about a new album by the Godfathers of the Progressive movement is the fact that the listener and long term fan gets to see new artwork by the legendary Roger Dean, that the music on offer by five of the finest, and in some cases beautifully intricate musicians around, is of a secondary nature is frankly a sorry state of affairs. It is an album in which you find yourself listening to twice back to back…only because it by-passes the musical radar completely first time round and saddens the memories of some of the most outrageous and complex creative notes placed together.
In short, for a truly outstanding band, for a group that is celebrated and illustrious, and quite rightly so, to sound if they have gone down the realms of making a conscious decision to sound like a 21st Century manufactured boy band is like listening to worst downfall in history, the anti-Prog brigade will be doing their upmost to stifle a volley of cackles and guffaws.
Like the dying embers of a brilliant summer and prolonged autumn, the sun has begun to set rather quickly on Heaven & Earth.
Ian D. Hall