This review addresses the Deluxe Edition of Yes’ latest album, Fly From Here. The difference here, basically, is the inclusion of a DVD of the making of the album. It’s an interesting mini-feature that mostly focuses on the suite “Fly From Here.” For long time Yes fans, it might actually be a bit troubling though because it’s revealed that, as the chatter on the Internet has suggested, “Fly From Here” really started as a Buggles song that was brought into the Yes camp. While Yes gave it a full treatment thirty years ago and then truly finished it in 2011, it didn’t begin as a Yes song, but rather a song by The Buggles. The whole relationship of Trevor Horn in this lineup seems a bit unusual, too. It’s hard to tell whether he’s a silent member of the band or a producer in the respect of pop music producers (you know, the guys who essentially create an album of music and put someone else’s name on it). While I saw this set more as a Yes album (with a lot of Buggles in the creative process) to begin with, after watching the DVD, it seems far less Yes and far more Buggles. Note that since I’ve already reviewed the standard version of the disc, the rest of this review is taken from that review – since it’s the same album – for the sake of consistency.

Only the second album in the history of Yes to be recorded without Jon Anderson, this one, particularly since it’s the only other Yes disc with Geoff Downes on keyboards, is obviously compared to Drama. Since Trevor Horn  produced this, that comparison is even more valid. In many ways, the music here is similar to the sounds on Drama. It’s tough to talk about Drama without understanding that really its sound was basically a merging of the Buggles (from which Horn and Downes emerged) and Yes. In many ways that description fits here, but I’d have to say that while a real stomper like “Machine Messiah” showed fire and a real classic Yes element, the dominant sound here is closer to Buggles. Part of that owes to the arrangements of the music, but part is due to Benoit David’s vocal delivery which is quite similar to Horn’s vocals in Yes.

Honestly, the opening suite, which is a completion of a track Yes began writing for Drama, is the best “song” on show here. It is also the most successful merging of more Yes-like sounds with Buggles elements. Honestly, one of the reasons Drama was a powerful set was that the Yes-like songs were strong and really rocked, in opposition to the more textural Buggles like bits. This disc doesn’t manage that balance, as well. There are some moments in the remaining shorter tracks, but most of it kind of pales in comparison to the epic.

All in all, this is a good album. It’s far from the strongest Yes album ever produced. Fans of Drama will probably like it the most, but they will probably also lament the fact that it doesn’t rock anywhere near as hard as that album did. I’d say that the epic suite is very strong, but nowhere near the level of a “Close to the Edge” or even “Minddrive.” As a long-time Yes fanatic, I’d chalk this one up as somewhere in the middle of their catalog in terms of strength of composition and performance. Of course, even weak Yes (and this isn’t weak, just not extremely strong) is better than the best from a lot of bands. I’d love to hear some of this material live because it probably will work better in that setting than on this studio album.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2011  Volume 4 at lulu.com/strangesound.

This instrumental is dramatic and keyboard dominated. It has a lot of Drama era Yes, and by extension Buggles, built into it. It really feels like it would have fit on Drama quite nicely.