Yes Relayer released

Relayer Yes

Released: December 5, 1974 Peak: 5 US, 4 UK, 22 CN, 15 AU Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: progressive rock

Tracks: Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Gates of Delirium [21:55] (7/1/75, “Soon” – excerpt, --) Sound Chaser [9:25] To Be Over [9:08] All tracks written by Yes. Total Running Time: 40:09 The Players: Jon Anderson (vocals, acoustic guitar, piccolo, percussion) Steve Howe (guitar, sitar, backing vocals) Chris Squire (bass, backing vocals) Patrick Moraz (keyboards) Alan White (drums, percussion)

Rating: 3.433 out of 5.00 (average of 9 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Relayer was the seventh studio album from Yes and the only one to feature Patrick Moraz on keyboards, replacing Rick Wakeman who left after Tales from Topographic Oceans to pursue a solo career. Greek keyboardist Vangelis (later of “Chariots of Fire” fame) was a close contender for the job and later collaborated with Jon Anderson on several albums. Yes had fallen out of critical favor with Tales from Topographic Oceans, a two-record set of four songs that reviewers found indulgent,” WR but it was still a commercial success so the band “had little incentive to curb their musical ambitiousness.” WR “Critics continued to complain about the lack of concise, coherent song structures,” WR but Relayer still made the top 10 and was a gold seller. The group did actually trim from Tales, going back to a single-disc album format. The three long songs that comprised the album made this feel more like a cousin to 1972’s Close to the Edge with “a long epic on the first side, and two nine-minute pieces on the second.” WK However, Relayer “employs a radically different musical style” WK from that album. The “music [is] organized into suites that alternated abrasive, rhythmically dense instrumental sections featuring solos for the various instruments with delicate vocal and choral sections featuring poetic lyrics devoted to spiritual imagery. Such compositions seemed intended to provide an interesting musical landscape over which the listener might travel.” WR “The Gates of Delirium is is a dense, 22-minute piece that was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace,” WK not exactly a work known for brevity itself. “It features lyrics about the futility of war and a lengthy instrumental middle section portraying ‘battle’ with galloping rhythms, martial melodies, dissonant harmonies, and clashing sound effects . The final section, in which the drive of the previous sixteen minutes is suddenly replaced by a gentle melody and a lyrical prayer for peace, was released as a U.S. single under the title Soon.” “Sound Chaser is a jazzy, mostly instrumental piece that echoes the then-popular jazz fusion of Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return To Forever. To Be Over, the gentlest piece on the album, features complex, melodic arrangements of guitar and electric sitar (at one point quoting a theme from Tales from Topographic Oceans), and arguably features Jon Anderson’s most straightforward lyrics since the band's second album, Time and a Word.” WK Notes: The 2003 reissue added a studio run-through of “The Gates of Delirium” as well as single versions of “Soon” and “Sound Chaser.”

Resources and Related Links: WR William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide WK Wikipedia First posted 6/7/2011; updated 7/24/2021.