The Yes Album

The key components to every great prog-rock album comprise memorable guitar riffs, punchy immediacy, ample rhythmic kick, and the imaginative capacity to transport the listener to a place well beyond the confines of reality. Yes’ The Yes Album features all of these rare qualities and more, the 1971 record as significant for saving the band’s career as well as for establishing new parameters in virtuosic technicality and skilled composition. The first set recorded with guitarist Steve Howe, The Yes Album remains Yes’ grandest achievement and claims a musical vision the British quintet’s contemporaries struggled to match. And now, it finally has audiophile sound to match, courtesy of Mobile Fidelity.

While unbeknownst to the band, Atlantic Records was prepared to drop Yes from the label if The Yes Albumdidn’t catch fire. To be certain, the group’s initial two offerings showed promise but were missing crucial elements. Specifically, they were absent the colorful instrumental orchestrations and gorgeous albeit hard-rocking solos offered by Howe, whose eclectic array encompasses country rock, boogie, and Appalachian styles seamlessly sewn into Yes’ rich canvasses. Howe’s chemistry with fellow sonic explorers Chris Squire and Bill Bruford is evident throughout, producing seemingly simple yet subtly complex arrangements that enjoy the benefits of remaining uncluttered, open, and spacious.

Then, of course, there are the fantastic songs. Avoiding the potential overkill of a multiple keyboard setup, Yes relies on Tony Kaye’s Hammond B3 organ to give it necessary thrust. Combined with Squire’s flexible bass lines, Howe’s inventive solos and acoustic tuckpointing, Bruford’s restrained thunder, and Jon Andersen’s poetic words, and it seems inevitable that The Yes Album could’ve been anything other than a smash success, whose memorable “I’ve Seen All Good People,” politically savvy “Yours Is No Disgrace,” and epic “Starship Trooper” still orbit today’s radio playlists and sports stadiums.

While previous remastered versions restored some of the life missing from early editions, they don’t go far enough. Mobile Fidelity’s 24K Gold CD of The Yes Album goes the distance. Rest assured that this limited-edition collectable takes its position as the most defintive-sounding Yes document on the market. Sourced from the original master tapes, the band’s soaring instrumental passages, engaging folk melodies, airy vocal harmonies, and breathy organ accents come across with incredible liveliness and intimately textured three-dimensional quality. Listeners will detect previously hidden details and marvel at the extraordinary microdynamics at both ends of the frequency spectrum. This is one rock classic no music lover will want to be without.

As always, Mobile Fidelity’s 24K Gold CDs are strictly limited and individually numbered, and housed in mini-LP style packaging, making them instant collector’s items.