Yes - Tormato*

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by BryanA-HTX, Jul 18, 2015.

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  1. Svetonio

    Svetonio Forum Resident

    Location:
    Serbia
    Me neither.
     
  2. Svetonio

    Svetonio Forum Resident

    Location:
    Serbia
    Yeah both GftO and Tormato are the covers that aren't bad per se but may be suitable for e.g. 10cc, not for Yes.
     
    anduandi likes this.
  3. BeauZooka

    BeauZooka Forum Resident

    Location:
    Seattle
    Not a good album imho. A few good tracks, but I think both Drama and Gft1 are far better albums.
     
  4. Terry

    Terry Senior Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee
    I like this album, although its cover does not work.
     
  5. Jeff W. Richman

    Jeff W. Richman The Richman Curse www.soundclick.com/qoquaq

    I love it. My favorite Yes albums are
    "Tales From Topographic Oceans", "Going For The One",
    "Relayer" and "Tormato".
     
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  6. kaztor

    kaztor Music is the Best

    I never understood what’s so wrong about Tormato’s cover.
    A naked guy with his buttcheeks upfront standing in front of skyscrapers and you hear no one.

    I love the album and I think it was a necessary step at the time to a shorter song format and a tightening up of the arrangements. It sits perfectly between GFTO and Drama.
     
    zen likes this.
  7. Eleventh Earl of Mar

    Eleventh Earl of Mar Somehow got them all this far.

    Location:
    New York
    The problem for me is that this record is home to some terrible production, like this entire record feels undercooked.

    It has some good songs, however lyrically it's repetitive and it never commits to a style. Madrigal has a great baroque sound but it's thrown out the window in 2 minutes, and Release Release is a good change of pace, but the rest just goes on... given the lineup it's pretty bad.
     
  8. rancher

    rancher Unmade Bed

    Location:
    Ohio
    Not one of my favorites by Yes, has some real duds like Circus of Heaven ... but Future Times/Rejoice and On The Silent Wings of Freedom are much better
     
  9. petem1966

    petem1966 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Katy TX
    I love Circus of Heaven, one of my favorites.
    I find Tormato more cohesive than GFT1.
     
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  10. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    I listened to this album again a couple of nights ago after having re-discovered this thread, and it's really good! I've still got my old LP from 1978 and it still sounds fantastic! I didn't even cringe during "Don't Kill The Whale." :laugh: "Future Times" has always been one of my favorite Yes songs. Composition-wise, it is a step down from previous albums, but it's still a sort of fun and playful Yes album, not a whole lotta seriousness going on. Seems like they were trying to make a more pop album as befitting the times, although not quite as pop as they would get five years later with Trevor Rabin and co.
     
  11. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    I agree, something about GFT1 never really clicked with me.
     
    petem1966 likes this.
  12. M2225

    M2225 Nebulus 7 intergalaxy eclipse

    Location:
    Helsinki, Finland
    Tormato is great! What other ´78-´79 albums are haters comparing it to? Or do they not realize a band has to evolve to survive?
     
  13. milco

    milco Forum Resident

    Agree with all of this.

    I especially agree about 'Freedom'. Often touted as a 'fan favourite', for me it is one of the most frustrating songs in the entire Yes canon. It has a great central tune, but you can almost feel the band struggling to develop the song into the epic album-closer that it should have been. They try a slower section, throw in a quirky instrumental break, but it never really develops away from the main tune for long enough. In the end it's like they just give up and bring it to a sudden, abrupt end -- very unYes-like!

    'Freedom' is OK, but I can't help listening to it without a sense of regret -- a feeling of what could have been.
     
    Tristero, mx20 and Ostinato like this.
  14. Eleventh Earl of Mar

    Eleventh Earl of Mar Somehow got them all this far.

    Location:
    New York
    You don't have to compare it to anything else except the last Yes album, which manages to sound more modern than this one. It's an album of a band running out of ideas, not bringing in new ones. Not until the breakup and reform anyway.

    I still admit Release Release was really cool and out of their element, but one song does an album not make. And even my other favorites (Madrigal and Onward) may as well date back to 1969 in regards to arrangement.
     
  15. Ostinato

    Ostinato Old and wise

    Not antagonizing, but why don't you like, for instance, Future Times/Rejoice? It's one of my favorite Yes songs from that period.
     
    petem1966, freemanl, mx20 and 2 others like this.
  16. Eleventh Earl of Mar

    Eleventh Earl of Mar Somehow got them all this far.

    Location:
    New York
    I wouldn't say I don't like it per se, in fact I played it a ton in the very early period of 70s prog obsession when I was 16 and jumping from Close to the Edge to Talk - but, this was one of my first stance changes in terms of music I played a lot - I knew the production was bad even then, but it's harder to forgive that honestly, even when my setup is "only" $400 compared to... $20 I guess at the time.

    Anyway, for the song itself, kind of encompasses the issue I have with Arriving UFO and Wings - you can tell it's Yes, it's prog music, but it feels as if all of them were written and recorded so fast that it's so often the music is at odds with itself in the context of what it's going for. Is this supposed to be a rave up like Going For The One? Probably but when you lose all of that energy out of nowhere (even if it is pretty) and then throw a pretty questionable solo after the second time this happens, I'm just sort of left feeling neither taken aback due to it's ambition or the bombastic feel the main part of song gives off. That and, it doesn't help with the production making Steve Howe's guitar sound really poor for some reason, intentional or not. In short, rushed.
     
  17. Crimson Witch

    Crimson Witch Roll across the floor thru the hole & out the door

    Location:
    Lower Michigan
    Was initially a bit disappointed by it when it first released- not hatred, but thought I was expecting something let's just say different. By the early 80s however, when Steve Howe & Asia were in the charts and Yes was making a chart comeback with Trevor Rabin filling the guitar slot, I gave Tormato another listen with fresh ears and have loved it ever since. It has since then been one of my favourite classic-lineup Yes albums and one of three that I have returned to the most over the years, along with The Yes Album and Fragile.
     
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  18. Scope J

    Scope J Senior Member

    Location:
    Michigan
    Is it on the list of

    The 20 Most Hated Rock Albums of All Time?
     
  19. Zardok

    Zardok Forum Resident

    Location:
    Castle Cary
    It's a lazy disjointed album with gimmicks.

    I still remember the huge disappointment when I bought this on release, at the time Yes were my second favourite band. "Future Times" is a promising beginning but, and this is part of the problem of this album, it goes nowhere. A short song, almost a snippet, which does not develop themes which spill over onto the next tracks. In short, a pop song. And Yes were not a pop band. Same thing happens with "Madrigal".

    "Don't Kill The Whale" is also a good song, love Howe's guitar here, but Wakeman spoils it with his "birotron". His attempt to recreate, presumably, the sound of whale-song ends up sounding like a cartoon character, a chipmunk or a squirrel, singing in its bath.

    "Arriving UFO" is cashing in on "Close Encounters" (dreary film) publicity. "Circus of Heaven" is monotonous and we really don't need Mr Anderson's son's contribution at the end. "Onward" is a good slow song but could use a little bit more variety.

    This doesn't sound like a band which was at ease with itself and working together as a unit. It sounds like a bunch of mid-life crisis blokes wondering if punk is going to kill their lifestyle. And the cover just confirms it, let's be trendy by having a cover design which even we don't like and improve it by smashing a tomato on it. Sounds like a plan? Yes? No!
     
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  20. newelectricmuse

    newelectricmuse charm, strangeness and quark

    Location:
    London
    I don't hate it. It's a step down from GFTO though (which is my favourite Yes album after CTTE) and has some weaker tracks that drag it down. Circus of Heaven would have been better saved for a Jon solo album. Release Release seems to be trying a bit too hard. Arriving UFO sounds unfinished. Some of the songs are good though. When Onward was revived by the band it reminded me how good it was. Future Times/Rejoice and Silent Wings are fine. I always liked Don't Kill The Whale - it made a good single (Trevor Horn famously hated it!) And I like the cover!

    Tormato showed they had passed their peak, although the tour to support it culminating in the famous broadcast Wembley show, was fantastic and a better way for this phase of the band to end.
     
  21. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    It's kinda meh, following Yes' string of classic albums. A few good songs but nothing to get excited about.
     
  22. Rufus rag

    Rufus rag Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    It's better than Going for the One. Some really strong tunes on Tormato.
     
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  23. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    Side One of Tormato beats out Side One of Going For The One.

    Side Two on the other hand, is a massive slaughter by GFTO.
     
  24. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    I think that most of the old prog bands were going through a bit of an identity crisis at that point as the musical climate was changing. ELP had Love Beach, Gentle Giant did Giant For A Day, Genesis had And Then There Were Three--muddled affairs that were reaching tentatively towards more pop song structures while still trying to offer something more substantial for their older fans. I can't really blame them for trying to trim their sails at that point, but progressive rock was no longer the dynamic force that it once was. In the case of Yes, I strongly prefer both Going For The One and Drama--both of which featured a leaner, more direct approach while still remaining expansive--to the cheesy charms of Tormato.
     
    newelectricmuse likes this.
  25. HairyWeimer

    HairyWeimer I can resist anything but temptation.

    I love them both...I do think the song "Turn Of The Century" on Going For The One is one of the most beautiful songs ever, great lyrics...Tormato has been an album that has grown on me over a period of time.
    [​IMG]
     
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