Former Yes frontman\/lyricist Jon Anderson has spent much of the 20 years elapsed since he was last an active member exploring strategies for continuing to play the music of the band he co-founded. At first his focus was on solo work and a potential return to the band; then it shifted to regrouping with other ex-members as Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman. More recently came the most unexpected\u2014and possibly most successful\u2014twist of all: stumbling across a band of strangers who love playing Yes songs nearly as much as he does singing them.<\/p>\n
The Band Geeks<\/a><\/u> are well-known on the \u2019net for their note-for-note renditions of classic progressive rock tunes by the likes of Genesis and Emerson Lake & Palmer, but it was their passionate, meticulous recreations of Yes classics like \u201cHeart Of The Sunrise<\/a><\/u>\u201d and \u201cClose To The Edge<\/a><\/u>\u201d that first caught Anderson\u2019s attention. After connecting with Band Geeks musical director Richie Castellano (a multi-instrumentalist and longtime latter-day member of Blue \u00d6yster Cult), Anderson recruited the group for a pair of very successful tours playing Yes classics with infectious enthusiasm.<\/p>\n (The Band Geeks lineup includes: Castellano on bass, guitar, keys, and vocals; Andy Ascolese on drums, keys, and vocals; Andy Graziano on guitars and vocals; Christopher Clark on keyboards; Robert Kipp on Hammond organ and vocals; and Ann Marie Nacchio on additional vocals.)<\/p>\n At a certain point along the way, the subject of making new music together surfaced. Anderson is known for having hundreds of half-finished musical ideas floating around at any given time, so raw material was unlikely to be a problem. And with Castellano shepherding the process\u2014co-producing, mixing, and in several cases co-writing\u2014it turned out to be a fruitful venture, resulting in relatively short order in this new album.<\/p>\n The question of whether the Geeks\u2019 deep affection for the classic Yes sound would translate to making new music is answered quickly; the first three tracks here are the strongest on the album. Six-minute opener \u201cTrue Messenger\u201d strikes an exuberant note with alternately dreamy and driving music supporting Anderson\u2019s stream-of-New-Age-consciousness lyrics. The band navigates multiple time signature shifts nimbly, but the real secret is tone and feel; Castellano nails the big Chris Squire bass sound and quirky sense of time and role, and Graziano sounds more like vintage Steve Howe here than the man himself has in some time, particularly on his very expressive closing solo.<\/p>\n Second track (and first single) \u201cShine On\u201d opens with \u201cLeave It\u201d-style a cappella before busting into some Squire-y bass and Rabin-esque guitar. If this had shown up on 90125<\/i>, fans might have said it was a little poppy and woo-woo (\u201cPower of the universe \/ Universal love,\u201d goes one chant)\u2026 but damn, does Anderson sound energized, and the music is both tight and complex; there\u2019s a lot going on and some sharp corners taken within this tight, rangy 4:18 track, including a brief, airy, slowed-down bridge before they come back in at full tilt. Up third, \u201cCounties And Countries\u201d is the first extended piece at nearly 10 minutes, with a steady-rocking instrumental opening sequence that introduces the track\u2019s fanfare-like main theme. Clark\u2019s synth tones and runs echo Wakeman\u2019s mid-\u201990s work with the band, Kipp features on a nice Hammond solo around six minutes in, and they power through a few rhythm section runs that feel like echoes of the group\u2019s 1997 epic \u201cMind Drive.\u201d <\/p>\n From there things get a bit patchier, though it\u2019s a matter of degrees.<\/p>\n While the title image of \u201cBuild Me An Ocean\u201d is intriguing, it\u2019s a spare, simple tune, really just a 3:19 poem set to piano and acoustic. It\u2019s also the first time you hear the age in Anderson\u2019s voice; it\u2019s pretty and vulnerable, but ultimately rather slight. The five-minute \u201cStill A Friend\u201d is stronger, a punchy, upbeat pastiche of Ladder<\/i>-era Yes. Then Anderson celebrates the joy of making music with \u201cMake It Right,\u201d while also contemplating mortality; it starts out acoustic and airy (\u201cOh let this be heaven \/ Oh let this be life\u201d) but evolves, developing symphonic elements and hints of a gospel choir. The track then jump-cuts straight into \u201cRealization, Pt. 2,\u201d which opens again with acoustic guitar and piano before blending in similar elements to its predecessor.<\/p>\n The 16-minute \u201cOnce Upon A Dream\u201d feels simultaneously like a triumph and something of a missed opportunity. This winding epic poem about seeking transcendence opens with a long chant mixing the profound and the nonsensical before moving into a heavier section with an \u201980s Yes feel. The music continues to morph through a multitude of segments and themes, but is rarely given space to breathe\u2026 the lyrics for this one track fill close to three pages in the booklet! When space eventually appears in the 13th minute there\u2019s a tasty jam, but it sure seems like more musical stretching out and fewer words might have delivered a stronger outcome. <\/p>\n The album closes with Anderson\u2019s heart on his sleeve as \u201cThank God\u201d delivers a luminous celebration of existence, love and connection. The song and album\u2019s last line, \u201cTogether again, you and I,\u201d feels like a message from Anderson to a multitude of audiences: his wife Jane, the fans, the band, and God, all at once.<\/p>\n In sum: for the most part, Anderson sings with the energy and power of a man half his age, and the Geeks are a revelation, a collective of extraordinarily talented players with an instinctual connection to this type of dynamic, optimistic progressive rock.<\/p>\n What captured my imagination here the most was the way True<\/i> feels like a natural sequel to the final studio album made by the classic Yes lineup of Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman and White after they reunited in 1995, issued as the studio tracks appended to the otherwise live Keys To Ascension<\/i><\/a><\/u> (1996) and Keys To Ascension 2<\/i><\/a><\/u> (1997). To this fan, True<\/i> has that same confident punch, melodic flow, rich complexity and distinct Yes vibe as those unjustly obscure Keys<\/i> tracks. <\/p>\n Twenty-seven years later, 79-year-old Jon Anderson and his new friends The Band Geeks have given fans a remarkable gift: True<\/i> is a vibrant, deeply affectionate, at times thrilling reimagination of the sound of classic Yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[11000],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-46962","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jon-anderson-the-band-geeks","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51851,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46962\/revisions\/51851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46962"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46962"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}