Relayer - YES***

The Gates Of Delirium/Sound Chaser/To Be Over

Progressive group Yes return to the single album format with Relayer but the inspiration has gone. As one reviewer observed, this is the evil twin of Close To The Edge. (US:5 UK:4)

“Relayer isn't my favourite album by the band, but it has a special quality, an ambience all of its own. The sound is metallic; cold and tinny for the most part, but with some notably warmer moments. There's also a good chunk of noise on the album and forays into a more jazzy exploration, something Yes can do with ease, unlike some of their more pedestrian contemporaries of the period.”

“Some of the most insane stuff I've heard from this band. Sound Chaser is just mental and pretty brutal actually. The Gates Of Delirium is one of those prog epics that actually works and justifies its length, although a good chunk of it is a jazz fusion workout, rather than symphonic grandiosity. Not such a fan of To Be Over though.”

“Probably the most intense Yes recording ever. Gates Of Delirium is a fantastic epic, much better than the overlong, overwrought stuff on Topographic Oceans. The star here though, is Sound Chaser. What a song. Squire and White are pulverizing on this one, and Moraz turns in a killer solo. How Anderson came up with a good melody over this madness, I don't know.”

“By this time Yes' years of inspiration were gone, as Relayer is just another demonstration of unimaginative technical playing prowess. But good music also needs heart and this doesn't have it.”

“The cold technical musical prowess does put a bit of a smokescreen over the accessibility of the music here but nevertheless it's frequently quite entertaining in it's complexity.”

“Relayer has been considered Close To The Edge’s evil twin, a more savage, wild, and ugly version of the magnum opus. If you like your prog nice and calm with plenty of relaxing mellotron and flutes, a good chunk of this won't be for you: many moments here are almost obnoxiously loud and quirky, the instrumentation messy, the overall feel is quite unsettling, even the calmer moments have a strong tension to them that build up to loud bursts of chaos.”