🎧 YES, "Relayer". Is it their most confounding record? Probably. Does it showcase everything that punk hated about prog? Check. It seems so directionless at times, yet it is their most challenging record. Patrick Moraz' only album with the band puts their jazz-rock chops to the test. It's delicate and violent all at once. By the time you suss out one meter, another one takes its place. "The pen won't stay the demon's wings".
@MPCavalier This is wild, I was just thinking about a post that began, "Is Relayer my favorite Yes record?" There's something about its wild abandon that I like. In response to a reply below, I actually hold Drama in high regard. Drama, Relayer, and TYA battling for Yes supremacy in my head, with Fragile wandering by bringing snacks—I am not a purist. I do hate most of Tormato though.
@MPCavalier No way, that song thumps. I agree that Howe felt a little creative goose on that album. Not that the upcoming pop records are bad, and some of those records still have proggy elements, but Drama to me is this surprising vinculum between the prog and pop sounds and the old guard seemed to embrace it. A Yes song that's barely a minute long? HERESY! But that one-time configuration was perfect for it.
@pr10n
I remember reading something that Steve Howe said about Tormato, along the lines that Anderson was constantly trying to tone down the heavier things the band were bringing in - saying it wasn't "gentle enough". Howe's quote "suddenly we were playing these airy-fairy bits of music again." For all it's controversy at the time, Drama seemed to free up Howe and the rhythm section to blow the hatch and turn up. Have they done anything as heavy as Machine Messiah?