Track Listing

1. Future Times / Rejoice
2. Don�t Kill The Whale
3. Madrigal
4. Release, Release
5. Arriving UFO
6. Circus Of Heaven
7. Onward
8. On The Silent Wings Of Freedom
9. Abilene
10. Money
11. Picasso
12. Some Are Born
13. You Can Be Saved
14. High
15. Days (Demo)
16. Countryside
17. Everybody�s Song (Early demo of "Does It Really Happen")

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3448 in Music
• Released on: 2004-02-23
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

CD Description
There's no ignoring the fact that TORMATO was Yes' most roundly (and unjustly) ignored recording. For reasons unknown, the album languished in bargain bins for years, despite being substantially less pretentious than some earlier work and much more "progressive" than Yes' later pop crossovers. On many tracks, there seems to be a concerted effort to cut backon the bombast. "Onward" is a simple, piano-based ballad, effectively rendered. "Future Times", "Don't Kill the Whale" and others find Steve Howe delivering some of his most visceral, biting guitar work, interacting nicely with Chris Squire's upper register bass lines. There's lots of carnival-likekeyboard work and fanciful imagery (see the striking, harpsichord-driven "Madrigal" and the poignant "Circus of Heaven"), but hell, this is a Yes album. And it all works.

Customer Reviews

Not as bad as you remember!
After a string of classic progressive rock releases, stretching from “The Yes Album” to “Going for the One”, “Tormato” was seen at the time as highly disappointing. There were no long form epics here, just short tight rock songs and simple ballads, with Yes struggling to counter the on-going onslaught from Punk. The title of the album may be trite and the cover justified the pummelling by tomatoes reproduced therein. But on reflection musically there is much to enjoy here. The band are actually in good form, in particular Chris Squires “bug-bug” harmonised bass propels proceedings along at a cracking pace. This bass sound is used extensively and is particularly effective on the closing “On the Silent Wings of Freedom” which is classic Yes. Squire’s bass opens up the track, taking lead with Howe’s guitar and Wakeman’s synths shimmering in and out of the mix pushing things on till Andersons opening vocal. “Release Release” is another rousing, driving rock number in the style of the title track from “Going for the One”. The single “Don’t Kill the Whale” has a wonderful whale-song polymoog solo from Wakeman and “Arriving UFO” again has layers of Wakemans carnivalesque keyboards throughout, with Howe’s distorted guitar giving an edge to the song. It’s all good fun. Squire’s “Onward” is beautiful and even “Circus of Heaven” which I found so twee at the time is now quite charming.

This is another great remastered and expanded release from Rhino. The sound is clear and crisp, some good liner notes and the extra tracks are actually worth inclusion too. In particular, “Picasso”, the joyous “Some are Born”, the beautiful harmonies of Anderson and Squire on “You Can Be Saved” and Anderson’s unaccompanied “Days” are worth repeated listening. So all in all, “Tormato” is worth re-evaluating. After this album, things got very confusing indeed!

I must be the odd one out...
Am I the only guy who actually enjoys this album? Sure the songs are shorter, and they don't all develop into anything, and there's lots of cheesyness... But hey, I love some of the experiments on show here. "Arriving UFO" took several dozen listens before I finally started to enjoy it, but tracks like "Future Times/Rejoice" and "On the Silent Wings of Freedom" are pretty much as good as anything Yes ever did from then onward. Speaking of which "Onward" is a lovely little number in the vein of "Wonderous Stories" from Going for the One, "Circus of Heaven" is pleasant (and one of the more interesting Anderson vocal pieces), "Madrigal" is a not bad Wakeman/Anderson duet...

One sting in the tail with this album seems to be best exemplified by Rick Wakeman's truly nails-on-blackboard solo on "Don't Kill the Whale": there are a lot of unneccesary cheesy hooks and knobs inserted for no real musical reason. Take "Release, Release" for another example; one of the most energetic Yes tracks (excluding examples from Drama)... Often when I listen to it, I seems to be nothing more than a cacophony with it's 1950s guitar loops and Anderson's unusually annoying and unrelenting vocals. Other times it's a refreshingly lighthearted version of Yes, something that you don't normally associate with the band.

Wow, I seem to be giving mixed messages... That's because that's exactly what this album gives to me.

If I'm in a bad mood, Tormato grates my brain into a mush. However, albeit in small doses, there is some first class material here. I would definetly recommend it to Yes fans, but not to anyone else really. So while some of the songs on Tormato are excellent, as a Yes album it's not quite a classic to rival their previous six releases.

Oh and come on... Open Your Eyes must surely be the Yes stinker by a long margin? Or as a fellow reviewer also suggested, Union? By comparison, Tormato is a masterpiece...

Not their best; not nadir either
For Rob Frampton to call Tormato "the nadir of their career" - ahead of Union or Open Your Eyes - is, frankly, nonsense. True it isn't their best work by any stretch of the imagination, but given the circumstances surrounding the recording that really isn't so surprising.

There is some good stuff on here: Future Times/Rejoice, Madrigal, On The Silent Wings and, yes, Don't Kill The Whale, which isn't "cringe-inducing" but carries an important message which is just as relevant today as it was in 1978.

I've given this an extra star due to the bonus material which is a Yes collector's dream. Well worth a purchase at under a tenner for the Yes-familiar, but if you're considering introducing yourself to this wonderful band, I would suggest starting with The Yes Album or Fragile.