Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (1989)

 After 1987’s Big Generator, Jon Anderson left Yes for the second time. Tired of butting heads with Trevor Rabin, Anderson had a plan to get the Fragile-era lineup back together. Excluding Chris Squire, who was still in Yes, this new band featured Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman, and Steve Howe. This was a marketer’s dream come true and Arista was quick to snatch up this new development, releasing the debut album from Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe in 1989. Touring the Yes classics, especially at a time when the official lineup was out of the public eye, was perfectly-timed. 

Musically, while this is a retreat from the commercial-leaning sounds of the prior Yes albums, this is still no throwback to the early days. The songs are multi-sectioned, and go through a variety of styles, but the players have grown and changed and that is reflected in the music. Bruford sticks to electronic drums, which more or less dates and defines this album, while Wakeman’s keyboards are far less flashy and intrusive as they have been in the past, but Steve Howe’s playing is as distinctive as ever and while his guitar does not dominate it does color the tracks in a way that sets this album from anything Yes had ever done. 

Four of the songs on this album are multi-sectioned suites. Of these, “Brother Of Mine” is the best, and was a relatively successful single (in a heavily edited version). “Order Of The Universe” is a cool little suite that plays more like four separate songs than a unified whole, as does “Quartet”. The shorter songs are mostly great, especially “Fist Of Fire” and the dark, powerful “Birthright” which is, hands down ABWH’s finest moment. “The Meeting” (which foreshadows the 2010s Anderson/Wakeman collaborations) and “Let’s Pretend” are both nice, simple songs that calmly close out each side, while the chipper, Caribbean-styled “Teakbois” almost throws the wheels off the whole thing (how this song made it to the album and the amazing “Vultures” was relegated to a b-side is a mystery that shall never be solved). 

Given that the entirety of this band was in Yes, this is basically a Yes album, for all intents and purposes, and I always file it as such, and it’s a damn fine Yes album from a very weird time. It would get weirder.…