Jon Anderson is at his best as a team player, working with close collaborators to create an expansive musical landscape and vision, whether that’s with Yes, Vangelis or Roine Stolt. It’s a pleasure to report that this devastatingly effective album is one of those occasions.
True features the twists, turns and musical hairpin bends of Anderson’s Yes years without slavishly copying, adding a modern cohesiveness. But strong hints of his old outfit are very much present in his collaborators, The Band Geeks, who – perhaps unsurprisingly – came to his attention covering Yes songs.
Guitarist Andy Graziano moves effortlessly from Steve Howe-esque trills and frills to Trevor Rabin-like ornamentation and power, sometimes within a few bars. Anderson’s co-producer (and latter-day Blue Öyster Cult member) Richie Castellano weighs in with some deliciously knotty Rickenbacker bass, as if Chris Squire is offering affirmation from the beyond.
Positivity abounds from the off in True Messenger, with Graziano sending pirouettes of sprightly notes across the song’s mercurial surface a la Howe, before conveying Rabin’s essence in a decidedly crunchy finale.
The 16-plus-minute Once Upon A Dream is a modern prog classic
Lead single Shine On, with its jazzy breaks and relentlessly-yelled title chorus, would fit well on Yes’s criminally overlooked (and recently reissued) 1994 album Talk. Counties And Countries features the plaintive vocal melodies of Yes’ earliest psychedelic incarnation, but also manages to perfectly blend elements of all the group’s phases across 10 superb minutes.
Yet the album still hasn’t peaked: the 16-plus-minute Once Upon A Dream is poised to become a modern prog classic. It opens with Anderson reprising the chanting style that begins Tales Of Topographic Oceans.
Graziano reels off a string of motifs that lodge in the brain after only the second or third hearing. The singer then leads the Geeks through the shifting musical terrain, including a gorgeously tranquil middle section before an appropriately magnificent conclusion.
True is no pale rehash of former glories, but a genuine triumph using past stylings to frame excellent compositions in a state-of-the-art setting. If only it had a Roger Dean painting or similarly majestic sleeve art to match the grandness of its contents, rather than the home computer cut-and-paste job we get.
True is on sale now via Frontiers Music.
