Review: Yes – Relayer (1974) (2025)

Relayer is the seventh studio album by Yes, founded in 1969.

After the massive double album Tales From Topographic Oceans (1973), Yes returns to the format familiar from Close To The Edge (1972) with Relayer. That is, the first half of the vinyl is filled with a 22-minute epic and the second half with two tracks of around ten minutes.

Yes decided to record the album in a home studio in the garage of bassist Chris Squire’s mansion home, with the help of an old acquaintance, producer Eddie Offord. But before the recording sessions could begin, the band had to solve one small problem: Rick Wakeman, the band’s keyboardist wizard, had defected from Yes after Topographic Oceans because he was unhappy with the band’s musical direction and was attracted by a solo career that was off to a good start. So where can we find a new and talented enough keyboard player to replace Wakeman?

One of the first candidates was apparently Keith Emerson. Yes manager Brian Lane called Emerson late at night to inquire about the superstar’s interest in joining the band. A stunned Emerson replied, ”Brian, why would I want to do that? I’ve just come off a tour playing 14,000-seat stadiums, sold out. I’ve got my own band – why would I want to join Yes?”. Johon Lane replied laconically, ”Well, there’s no harm in asking.”

With Emerson’s refusal, Yes turned their attention to continental Europe and the band’s first serious candidate to replace Wakeman was Paris-based Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou, originally from Greece, who had made a name for himself in Aphodite’s Child and later made a couple of creative keyboard-oriented solo albums . More commonly known as Vangelis. Vangelis was much admired by Jon Anderson in particular, who had already visited him in Paris to greet him at the end of the Topographic Oceans tour. Vangelis was persuaded to audition and spent a few days jamming with Yes. In the end, the personal and musical chemistry didn’t quite match (guitarist Steve Howe in particular wasn’t keen on Vangelis) and Vangelis’ fear of flying wasn’t a plus for the band, who were set to embark on a major world tour after the next album. Later in the 70’s and especially in the early 80’s Anderson and Vangelis made several albums together under the name Jon And Vangelis and even achieved a relatively high level of popularity.

The young Eddie Jobson , who had playedin Curved Air and Roxy Music, was also considered, but in the end the Swiss Patrick Moraz was chosen.

Patrick Moraz was an ambidextrous virtuoso who had played the piano and violin since childhood and studied classical music at the Lausanne Conservatoire. Moraz had also played in jazz bands (even opening for John Coltrane ), which was no doubt something Yes also liked, as they had a vision of music that leaned more towards jazz-rock. Moraz also had experience of prog bands, having played ELP-style keyboard prog in two British bands. First with Mainhorse in the early 70s and then with bassist Lee Jackson and drummer Brian Davison in Refugee, a sort of continuation of The Nice from which Keith Emerson had defected to form his own supergroup Emerson Lake & Palmer, leaving his rhythm section adrift. It’s a bit comical that after only one Refugee album (1974’s relatively successful eponymous debut) they were subsequently rejected by the keyboard virtuoso when Moraz accepted an offer to join Yes. With Yes, Moraz finally had the chance to play with musicians of his calibre. Jackson and Davison, on the other hand, had had enough. They both slammed the gloves down and left the fickle music business (although Davison quickly visited Gong before that ).

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With Moraz, Yes was again a very capable five-piece, especially as drummer Alan White finally comes into his own on this album. Relayer probably contains the finest drumming of White’s career. Of course, Chris Squire and Steve Howe had nothing to prove for a long time, but naturally their playing is also at a stunning level on this album. Steve Howe surprises on Relayer, playing mostly a sharp-sounding Telecaster instead of big-bodied ”jazz guitars”. This brings a whole new sound to Howe’s playing and the effect is of course great on the whole album. Jon Anderson, the band’s unofficial leader, gets to shine as a composer on the album, the highlight of which is his largely solo epic ”The Gates Of Delirium”.

Legend has it that Jon Anderson played the entire 22 minute ”The Gates Of Delirium” for Yes on piano, struggling with his rudimentary playing technique. Whether that’s true, I don’t know, but Jon Anderson is the only one who got composition credit for the song. It is clear, however, that the contribution of the rest of the Yes team in the final arrangement is extremely significant.

The album’s opening, intense and insistently raging ”The Gates Of Delirium” holds the listener in its grip through ferocious instrumental battles that evoke the gods better than almost any other epic of over twenty minutes. In the song’s most ferocious moments, the band makes use of car parts collected by Anderson and White from a junkyard. The towers assembled from these junkyard treasures were then subverted in the studio and the result is a diabolical avant-garde racket that perfectly captures the chaos and violence of war.

Words cause our banner, victorious our dayWill silence be promised as violence displayThe curse increased we fight the power and live by it by dayOur Gods awake in thunderous roars and guideThe leader’s hands in paths of glory to the cause

Complex and often heavy, the song finally culminates in the quietly delicate and beautiful ”Soon”, which was also extracted as a single from the whole. ”Soon” is definitely one of the most beautiful moments of progressive rock. Anderson’s gorgeous, passionately sung anthemic melody is backed by Howe’s elegant guitar playing.

Soon oh soon the lightPass within and soothe the endless nightAnd wait here for youOur reason to be here

”The Gates Of Delirium” is, of all Yes’s long songs, the closest thing to classical music in terms of so-called programme music. Like the symphonic poems of art music, ’The Gates Of Delirium’ manages to create a clear musical image without even considering the lyrics. Anderson’s lyrics are clearer than usual on this one, even though they are in part poetic abstractions in the familiar style. Together with the music, they tell a very clear story of the horrors of war. The anger, revenge and ultimately the realisation that enemies are only human and that eventually the cycle of hatred and revenge must be broken before it wears out its welcome. The gorgeous grey-toned cover art by Yes court artist Roger Dean also seems to illustrate the album’s content more strictly than usual. On the cover, horsemen descend headlong amidst a rocky, Tolkien-like landscape. On their way to battle? Two snakes, perhaps symbolic of war, slither in the foreground.

After the heavy but rewarding ”The Gates Of Delirium”, Yes doesn’t let up and the next track, ”Sound Chaser”, is downright fiercely intensive for most of its 9-minute duration. ”Sound Chaser” is Yes music at its wildest and may well be Yes’ most challenging single track to play. It is on ”Sound Chaser” that the jazz-rock influences new to Yes come to the surface, yet are woven into a perfectly natural part of Yes’ own style. As much as the Yes crowd admired jazz-rock bands like Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return To Forever (whose main man Chick Corea was reportedly digging Yes), Yes’ take on jazz-rock is by no means a wax-copy version, but the band managed to integrate those influences into their own style in an original way. On the other hand, ”Sound Chaser” is very exceptional sounding music even for a Yes song! ”Sound Chaser” is a very cosmic and very very strange song.

The song, which mostly rumbles along at a breathtaking pace, features a Telecaster tearing through the music with a really cutting sound, Alan White’s 5/4 vibraphone intro and a strange, very avant-garde guitar solo from Howe that sounds like electronic flamenco. Add to this Moraz’s virtuoso keyboard work on a Fender Rhodes, an instrument new to Yes, numerous changes of key and time signature and Anderson’s hilarious cha-cha-chaa vocalisation and you have a pretty original song that really took rock music to a new level. ”Sound Chaser” is Yes at its most radical and a track that sees the band going straight avant-prog and throwing high fives with Henry Cow and other specialists in extraordinarily complex music. It would have been very interesting if Yes had developed this direction even further in the future.

After ”Sound Chaser”, the final track on the album, ”To Be Over”, is a soothing and downright meditative experience. The song begins with a dreamy and atmospheric couple of minutes of instrumental intro with Howe playing electric guitar and steel guitar. Oddly enough for me, this intro directs my thoughts more towards Hawaii than India. In any case, Howe has created a great guitar orchestration. The first lyrics of the song, sung gently by Anderson after the intro, describe the mood of the song quite perfectly:

We go sailing down the calming streamsDrifting endlessly by the bridge

”To Be Over” really manages to give the listener a relaxing feeling of just floating downstream along the river. And all would be well. However, the song doesn’t stay just as relaxed until the end, but in the familiar Yes style, slowly builds up the rhythm with Steve Howe’s slightly country-like rhythmic guitar playing and finally reaches a nice intermediate crescendo with Mellotrone. The second half also features a great synthesizer solo from Moraz with a rather UFO-like sound. All in all, ”To Be Over” is a good example of Yes’ skill to write a beautiful song and then develop and hone it through a progressive arrangement into a mini-epic.

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Relayer’s sounds and production have sometimes been criticised quite harshly. It’s true that the sounds on the album are more gritty and abrasive than on previous albums. Steve Howe’s Telecaster sometimes sounds really discordantly violent and the sounds of the album can’t be called particularly warm. However, this actually turns out to be an asset of the album for me and gives the songs on the album an extra edge, which is already built in to the compositions and playing. Not everything always has to sound so domesticated and nice!

However, an alternative mix of the album is also available. Steven Wilson of prog band Porcupine Tree has become a popular remixer of classic 70s prog albums in the 2010s. Wilson also remixed a Relayer album in 2014. Some of Wilson’s remixes have been excellent, others not so much. Relayer falls somewhere in between. Wilson’s stereo mix of Relayer (there is also a 5.1 version available, but I haven’t heard it) is in some ways more balanced, but also more gutless and dull. The Relayer loses some of its edge and sharpness in Wilson’s treatment. Some of the ”sound effects” from the battle scene in ”The Gates Of Delirium” were also left out which reduces the chaotic power of the song. Wilson’s version is not unworthy, but in the end its best feature is that it made me appreciate the original version more than before. Relayer’s original mix is, for me, even with its flaws, the definitive version of the album.

Yes has a certain reputation as a soft hippy band, which I think is a very wrong impression of the band’s diverse music, but nevertheless, it can be said that Relayer really showed the dark side of Yes for the first time. It’s a pity that Yes didn’t explore this direction further and returned to a lighter sound three years later with Rick Wakeman on Going For The One.

Relayer is a masterpiece and one of Yes’ three best albums, along with Close To The Edge and Tales From Topographic Oceans.

Best tracks: ”The Gates Of Delirium”, ”Sound Chaser”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Kirjoittaja: JANNE YLIRUUSI

Read also: Review: Yes – Tormato(1978)

Tracks:

1. ”The Gates of Delirium” 21:462. ”Sound Chaser” 9:223. ”To Be Over” 9:00

Yes:

Jon Anderson: vocals Steve Howe: acoustic guitars, electric guitar, electric guitar, backing vocals Patrick Moraz: keyboards Chris Squire: bass guitar, backing vocals Alan White: drums, percussion

Producer: Eddie Offord & Yes

Label: Atlantic