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Album Details

• Artist: Yes
• Album: Close To The Edge
• Label: Atlantic
• Year of Release: 1972
• ME Rating: Indie Classic
• Reviewed by: gwhill on 2012-11-20

There are many who consider Close to the Edge to be Yes’ best album, and I’m one of them. It’s not a disc that you can get into instantly. The songs are complex and long. In fact, there are only three songs, two of them almost ten minutes each and one that’s nearly twice that. I hated it when I first heard it, but fell in love on repeated spins. It is arguably the quintessential progressive rock album, representing everything that has been praised and criticized about prog.

The opening track (an entire side of the original vinyl) was the title track. It represented a classical suite in many ways, with recurring themes, advanced compositional development and huge contrasts between harder rocking and mellower sounds. It was really an adventure in and of itself, feeling like an epic journey that’s undertaken. One of the things that made Yes such a great band, though, was the fact that amidst intensely technical sections of music, they managed to weave hooks and emotion. That was really shown on this epic.

Although extended and complex, one could really describe “And You And I” as a balled. Like the best Yes, it had a lot of variation between dark and light, soft and rocking. It arguably had more emotion packed into than just about anything else in the group’s catalog. It’s been a frequent member of the Yes live set and a fan favorite over the years. While “And You And I” focused a lot on mellower sounds, the disc’s final cut, “Siberian Khatru” screamed out with hard rocking prog. It’s one of my all-time favorite Yes songs and included some of Steve Howe’s highest energy work of any Yes song. It’s no wonder that the cut has often been the opener in Yes concerts.

Yes’ Close to the Edge is album that requires time to really grow on the listener. As opposed to pop music, though, which reveals all its secrets quickly, it’s also an album that will show more and more magic on repeated spins. It really represents a great introduction to the most prog oriented side of Yes and progressive rock in general. It’s truly a classic album, standing tall to this day.

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