Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 16th to Saturday the 22nd of February 1975
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 15th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 16th,
and published on Wednesday the 19th of February 1975.
Yes
Relayer
At No.44, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 3rd Birthday, is Yes with Relayer.
A year after…
…the brave and bold undertaking of “Tales from Topographic Oceans“, comes an album which in my mind could be the closest sibling to the previous studio album before that leviathan, “Close To The Edge“. Providing a symmetry to that inbetween peak of complete unabashed self-indulgence which would assuredly divide the band’s faithful, who, after the group got close to their edge, were either judged to have taken that next step and either a) magnificently flown defiantly into new uncharted territory, or b) spectacularly plummeted into an embarrassing abyss of bloated and swollen conceitedness.
Their ex-keyboard player was definitely on team B’s camp, as he’d quit straight after the tour, apparently after it got so tedious for him, he found more joy consuming a mushroom bhuna on stage than actually performing the lengthy pieces themselves. Thus, for this new release, they have acquired the dexterous fingertips of the more jazzy Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz, which seems to please Jon especially as, after the elongated but also stifling confinement of his input in convoluting the last vast double album, he has been looking for something infinitely more free-form.
And so, resting back into their most successful format of one long piece which covers the first side of vinyl, and two more manageable tracks on the second, they set about with a slightly different outlook which intended to embrace an also more electronic feel, which they’d also picked up on as a new experimental movement which was beginning to grow ever more potent in the last twelve months especially.
As all the sources tell us, the epic of the first side is formulated around Leo Tolstoy‘s just as epic novel War And Peace, although it could also quite contemporarily be referencing the suffering, dissent and effective moments of the Vietnam war as it entered into its death-throes, which the band themselves surely would have witnessed while touring across the USA back in the winter through into early spring last year. It’s also got all the bangs and crashes which fed Alan and Jon’s thirst for the extravagance they required to make the battle segment sound as realistic as they possibly could, by diverting into a local scrapyard most days and collecting as many old car parts and panels as they felt fit for the cause of artistic licence, especially when it culminates with the recording of the whole lot crashing down deafeningly to signify the end of the battle itself, which segues into the far more peaceful close of the track.
The first track on the second side is where the new recruit really begins to come into his own, and where the band explore fresher avenues of experimentation. Again, with a high energy feel running through the majority of the track, it’s (and this is my personal opinion) quite a welcome return to the tighter sound of the last-but-one album, where they’re instinctively more focused instead of feeling the urge to meander.
It’s all finished off with a much calmer balance for the third and final track to finish off the album, pulling ideas from memories before the inception of the band itself. It seems the perfect antidote for all the power and brashness that the other pieces exude so confidently, almost sending you off into a nice comfortable slumber at the close.
The whole album seems to be a wake-up call, with affirmation that the band still had plenty to say and perform about, for the doubters to think again, and for Yes to announce with a grander conviction than before, that OK, they took themselves beyond the edge, but now they were most definitely back.
The album…
…had crashed into the Top 5 of the UK Chart, landing at No.4, the week just before Christmas last year in 1974 on the 15th of December, where it would hold fast that position, which would become its peak, for two weeks during the holiday season, before slipping back to No.6 for the change-over of the year into 1975.
As the middle of January approached, so it fell out of the Top 10, and just before it got to February, it fell out of the Top 20 too; and in the weeks leading up to this one, it has plummeted almost out of the chart altogether, dropping back to No.48 before managing to scramble a few places back to reach No.42, but then slipping once more to this position.
From here…
…it does indeed let go, leaving the Top 50 after the 22nd of the month, but not for long, as the album returns for one bonus week at the beginning of March before leaving for good, with 11 weeks trailing behind it, after the 8th of March
Side 1
Side 2
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