It would appear I have grossly miscalculated how long the playlist is. Definitely not gonna get through all of them in one go as theat would mean I'm staying up til nearly 2am. I will do a few more before I hang it up for tonight and come back fresh in the morning
How about we look at a classic next.
Close to the Edge
That intro promises majesty, but I think the opening instrumental of this are actually a little messy if I'm honest. But I think a lot of that is the lead behind the focal point. When we land into what feels like a main melody at the 3 minute mark, everything seems too meet up again and create a really beautiful sound.
When we at last arrive into the first verse, man, what a great groove! The vocals are great, I'm loving the harmonies.
Within the first six minutes though, I'm finding something I'm not as keen on. I don't really love how often it feels like they're transitioning out of a section and then it just comes back in where they already were. It's an odd thing, and what the false transitions are sound nice and are placed well, but they just feel really off to my ear.
The start of the third movement does lose me a bit, I must admit. It actually feels very out of place with the rest of the song preceding it. This feels like a whole new song, nice in it's own right, but also kinda disjointed to where we came from.
The church organ starts to pipe up again and I feel like we're about to get right back into the thick of it. But we go into a bit more of a swung version of the main chorus of this section.
Part 4, The Seasons of Man, really kicks it up again though. A great riff that gives way into a really cool organ solo! And at this point, I'm realising the bassist is really the hero of this whole track. Those little high pitch slides he rocks during the solo are so cool!
It all wraps up real nicely, but I honestly think that the third smovement really slowed this song down for a bit too long. I had a better time with this than Turn of the Century, but I don't believe I'm gonna turn into a huge Yes fan any time too soon.
4 + 1