Yes Survivor 2023 - Tales From Topographic Oceans - Round 1

[The Letter M]

Tales From Topographic Oceans
The Revealing Science Of God (Dance Of The Dawn)
The Remembering (High The Memory)
The Ancient (Giants Under The Sun)
Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil)

-Marc.

[pg1067]

I'm thinking this one is going to be pretty predictable (at least as to the first couple eliminations).

The Ancient gets my vote.

[romdrums]

And let's get rid of The Ancient immediately!

[DTA]

The Ancient

[Eldomm]

The Ancient

[Mladen]

Dang, I'm playing against everyone with every single round. 

Ritual gets my vote.

[Kwyjibo]

Ancient

[romdrums]

Surprised that there are votes other than The Ancient here.

[Mladen]

That might be because The Ancient is fantastic. 

[romdrums]

That might be because The Ancient is fantastic. 

To me, The Ancient sounds like the band, minus Steve Howe, were running out of ideas so they just let him noodle for a while until Jon Anderson said, "wait, I can put some words on this part here!" which is how Leaves of Green ended up on the end there.

[Mladen]

Could be, but how about that guitar work by Steve Howe? That's something right there, I would argue it's the pinnacle of his entire career. Everything he's about is in that song, it's spectacular.

[pg1067]

For me, The Ancient is an exceptional six minute song tagged on to 12 minutes of seriously weird noodling.  If I had never heard the song until now, I wouldn't have the patience for enough listens to get to a point where I can enjoy the first two thirds of the song.  On the whole, it's good, but it's pretty well documented that rom's comment is accurate.  There were ideas that got stretched so that they could fill out four album sides.  That's one of the reasons why Wakeman bailed.  While I love TFTO, it would be interesting to hear what might have been if they had compressed it down to 20-24 minutes per side on two album sides instead of stretching.

[romdrums]

Could be, but how about that guitar work by Steve Howe? That's something right there, I would argue it's the pinnacle of his entire career. Everything he's about is in that song, it's spectacular.

To my ears, his tone, which I've never been a fan of, is especially thin and nasally on TFTO.  And to me that's strange because he's playing Gibsons on those tunes, which should be really full bodied and rich.  And instead, they sound like balsa wood. The main thing that drives me nuts with The Ancient is the way his guitar tone and his note choices hits my ears.  It's literally painful!

[pg1067]

Could be, but how about that guitar work by Steve Howe? That's something right there, I would argue it's the pinnacle of his entire career. Everything he's about is in that song, it's spectacular.

To my ears, his tone, which I've never been a fan of, is especially thin and nasally on TFTO....  his guitar tone and his note choices hits my ears.  It's literally painful!

Just wait until we get to GFTO!

[Mladen]

Interesting. I've never had an issue with Howe's tone on The Ancient. It's soft, but it fits his playing style in my opinion. I like how the sound evokes different feeling for different folks, though.

[romdrums]

Interesting. I've never had an issue with Howe's tone on The Ancient. It's soft, but it fits his playing style in my opinion. I like how the sound evokes different feeling for different folks, though.

Tastes, amirite?

Maybe he had some schwag weed when he recorded those parts.  His guitar work on The Ancient is a bit too a-tonal for me.  If I was going to really nail it down, it's the thin, yet somehow rounded and hollow tone that he uses, added in with the way he's sliding to notes rather than just fretting them, and the fact that his cadenza before Leaves of Green is really out there, like to the point that I can't find a tonal center.