Yes Close To The Edge CD

2003 remastered, reissue of 1972 album with redesigned booklet (digipak/slipcase), restored LP art, archival photos and new liner notes. Includes 4 bonus tracks 'America' (single version), 'Total Mass Retain' (single version), 'And You And I' (alternate version) & 'Siberia' (studio run-through of 'Siberian Khatru'). Elektra.

Yes: Jon Anderson (vocals); Steve Howe (guitar, background vocals); Rick Wakeman (keyboards); Chris Squire (bass instrument, background vocals); Bill Bruford (drums, percussion).
Liner Note Author: Mike Tiano.
With 1971's Fragile having left Yes poised quivering on the brink of what friend and foe acknowledged was the peak of the band's achievement, Close to the Edge was never going to be an easy album to make. Drummer Bill Bruford was already shifting restlessly against Jon Anderson's increasingly mystic/mystifying lyricism, while contemporary reports of the recording sessions depicted bandmate Rick Wakeman, too, as little more than an observer to the vast tapestry that Anderson, Steve Howe, and Chris Squire were creating. For it was vast. Close to the Edge comprised just three tracks, the epic "And You and I" and "Siberian Khatru," plus a side-long title track that represented the musical, lyrical, and sonic culmination of all that Yes had worked toward over the past five years. Close to the Edge would make the Top Five on both sides of the Atlantic, dispatch Yes on the longest tour of its career so far and, if hindsight be the guide, launch the band on a downward swing that only disintegration, rebuilding, and a savage change of direction would cure. The latter, however, was still to come. In 1972, Close to the Edge was a flawless masterpiece. ~ Dave Thompson
One of the high-water marks of progressive rock (and thus of 1970s rock in general), CLOSE TO THE EDGE found British prog godfathers Yes firing on all cylinders. Throughout their history, they've undergone numerous lineup changes, but this album featured the "classic" formation responsible for their absolute finest achievements. Here Rick Wakeman is at his Moog-goes-Baroque best behind the keyboards, Steve Howe sounds like a blues guitarist from Mars, Chris Squire delivers confoundingly contrapuntal bass lines, and Bill Bruford seemingly solves complex mathematical equations from his drum stool. The lion's share of the album is occupied by the title track, a complex piece that moves through numerous modes and moods. In latter decades, the extended song-suite has been denigrated as indicative of the worst rock pretensions, but, on CLOSE TO THE EDGE, it was a fascinating new concept, and Yes made it work more convincingly than anyone else before or since.

Uncut (1/04, p.122) - 5 stars out of 5 - "CLOSE TO THE EDGE remains an untarnished pinnalce of '70s tech-flash..."
Q (Magazine) (p.120) - "Yes achieved unity here....The title track alone set the template for a strand of brainy rock music that continues through Radiohead's PARANOID ANDROID..."