Album of the Day

Yes: Relayer. At one point when I was a kid I took to taping good chunks of my brothers' record collections, even stuff I didn't really know all that well at the time. One day I was trying to tape Relayer, but my Mom put an end to that - "The Gates of Delirium" just had to be about drugs, she said. So that was that, until I got into college and started fleshing out my CD collection. When I finally got Relayer, I thanked Mom for stopping me earlier. Not because "Gates" really is a vicious appeal to drug use (it's about war, actually), but because it is so different from the rest of the Yes catalog that I'm not sure I was ready for it when I was younger. With more seasoned ears, I ate it up. It was the last great hurrah for the band.