Union, by Yes (1991): This shotgun-wedding of a "reunion" album was actually cobbled together from two separate albums-in-progress. Most of the tracks came from what would have been the second Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe album, while the remainder came from the Trevor Rabin-led YesWest quartet. Jon Anderson crossed over to sing on the YesWest tracks and Chris Squire added some backing vocals to the ABWH songs (but Tony Levin still played bass) and - voila - Union. So, regardless of the video for the single, "Lift Me Up," the assembled masses didn't actually assemble until the tour. While the tour receives some pretty good reviews from the Yes faithful, Onion (as it's known) itself is generally panned. In reality, it's not that bad, but it fails to live up to its promise. And to a prog-starved youth in 1991, it was still a Yes album.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
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While the amusing ego battles are barely hidden -- I've always felt Trevor Rabin occasionally shouted random words in his backup vocals just so he'd be heard -- this really isn't that bad an album. Steve Howe had a nice solo, Lift Me Up wasn't a bad single, and Shock to the System was a worthy entry into the Yes canon.
Frankly, I don't think they've done anything as good since then, though Homeworld from The Ladder is probably their best post mini-epic-length song since the '70s heyday.
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