New Yes History: A Moment to Breathe, A Moment to Listen

These are notable days for the perennial rock monolith Yes. The Quest introduced a new version of the band in 2021 and now in quick succession another album called Mirror to the Sky is set for release at the end of May 2023. At this juncture, fans of the band are existing in that brief squirmy preface of anticipation before getting our grubby, cynical hands on new Yes music.

This fast second release is what it appears, a reinforcement of something newly established. In any period of its long history, the group (or flag or brand) has been no stranger whatsoever to the concept of change. Due to a number of events over the last several years, the band again regenerated like a vampire, and these tandem studio works are the result.

The first two teasers from Mirror to the Sky, “Cut From the Stars” (5:25) and “All Connected” (9:02), are out in the public. Four of the album’s nine songs are over eight minutes long, and this emphasis differentiates Mirror to the Sky from The Quest. Without any critical commitment, it can at least be said the two songs are focused and ambitious.

For a follower of Yes History, as it flows across swathes of time, it feels like a moment to take a breath. So much has happened. This band is a chameleon and across 50 years has survived a long list of the types of challenges that have doomed myriad uncounted groups. This time, as in others, questions of survival arose. It would seem the current lineup is intent on answering those questions in the language of new music – rather than interviews and just touring.

Heaven and Earth can be chosen as an arbitrary starting point leading to today. That laid-back 2014 effort introduced a new vocalist as Yes poached vocalist/songwriter Jon Davison away from A-1 progressive amalgam Glass Hammer. Reasons why became apparent immediately on good-first-efforts “Light of the Ages” and “Believe Again.”

In spring of 2015, founder and bass player Chris Squire passed away rather quickly, making Heaven and Earth his last band work. Just prior, he asked past member Billy Sherwood to fill the position on touring requirements, and his place as Yes’s bassist soon became permanent.

Starting in 2016, drummer Jay Schellen began to split concert duties with Alan White as the 40-year stalwart’s health became compromised. Then, affecting everyone, the end of the decade saw COVID put all participants into a stall for more than a year.

The restlessness and seclusion of the pandemic directly resulted in The Quest, which is a significant statement in a few senses. It is the first Yes album under the primary guidance of venerated guitarist Steve Howe, the first album with Sherwood on bass, the second with Davison settling in as vocalist/songwriter, and singularly, the final recording with White as drummer, after he passed in spring 2022. This unfortunate capstone on a series of events marks The Quest as unique to the organization even considering its Escher-like past.

Listed as percussionist on The Quest, Schellen will emerge as a band member in full-on Mirror to the Sky. It is therefore Yes’s first album with a new drummer since Tales From Topographic Oceans in 1973. With this last personnel shift, Yes truly becomes Steve Howe’s band.

This feels like a moment of as much stabilization as the march of time allows. It is not a stretch to receive The Quest / Mirror to the Sky as musical proof-of-life statements, with Howe and Company intent on imprinting their own engram cells on the group timeline.

In 1991’s Yesyears documentary, keyboardist Rick Wakeman said he could envision Yes continuing into a far-flung future, long past any current members, and carried on by others. That is exactly what is happening now.

For many reasons, the band sound has always shifted around within a Yes-specific style of rock, progressive, and pop, sometimes mildly and at times more abruptly. Its long history is broken down into eras, identified mostly by personnel and type of sound. Endorphined listeners enter and leave fandom via certain songs, time periods or personalities, but a good argument can be made that the long-term fans gain by far the fullest measure of pleasure.

Because of this fan/catalog fluidity, The Quest and Mirror to the Sky, as with past releases, will result in fans who highly approve, some who leave Yes behind, and new fans who will discover this idiosyncratic, compelling, and usually unpredictable musical storyline.

Despite what formatted radio and suggested playlists imply, listeners are capable of enjoying both country and western, and it is dirt common to find a Yes fan recommending albums as divergent as Relayer and The Ladder, or Big Generator and 2019’s superb From a Page EP. In the future, it should be no different with these compositions and arrangements by this lineup. Music listeners are well able to keep up with the variant approaches by Yes through time, and the rewards have always been there.

Is the new music enjoyable? Critics are dandruff; go listen and you decide. If a “new sound” is the biggest hurdle, it is still easy enough to imagine both “Cut From the Stars” and “All Connected” pleasing established fans, and attracting new ones who are unencumbered by any biases of a past period. They move.

In this moment of pause, it feels as if dust has settled. Positions are set. Maestro Howe is the pivot point with 50 years tenure. Geoff Downes played keys on 1980’s Drama album and has been back since 2011. Billy Sherwood has been associated with the band since the late 1980s as a sideman, member (1997-2000), producer and more, leaving Davison and now Schellen to be labeled the new guys. This is a good balance of heritage and fresh influence, which is the way most Yes music has been created.

The current incarnation is going to make itself felt in the same manner as any of the myriad past lineups, driven by their own muses within a Yes framework that they interpret and expand on as they operate. The music will do the talking, and Yes music has always been worth the listen.