In 2023 Yes achieve their quickest turnaround between studio album projects for more than half a century, delivering Mirror To The Sky 19 months after The Quest. Just ahead of the release, Steve Howe, Geoff Downes and Billy Sherwood told Prog how important their 23rd studio project was, and what it meant for their future.
The warm reception to lead single Cut From The Stars and anticipatory buzz around Yes’ 23rd studio album Mirror To The Sky finds the band members in an upbeat and confident mood, convinced of its importance to their future. “It’s not the same line-up as The Quest because unfortunately we’ve lost Alan White,” says Steve Howe, “but it’s the mould of a band that wants to carry on. So that’s why I think it’s important.”
Despite all the spectacular music and thematic obsession with unity and general good vibes in their earlier eras, the history of Yes from inception to 2004 was famously fraught and dysfunctional. “We had a lack of continuity with big gaps,” Howe reflects. “We wanted to get into a methodology of how the music was agreed and how we put it all together.”
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Bassist Billy Sherwood elaborates: “As Steve used to say onstage on the last tour, this is the longest-running Yes line-up in history so far – which is a testament to how we all enjoy each other’s company.”
It seems from Howe’s comments that some of the conflicts in later years were based around the face that the habits of younger men didn’t work for their older selves. “The process that we’ve been working on is so opposite from the 70s,” the guitarist says. “There was always a hurry; we were always pressured; there was always something booked that couldn’t be moved. Those chaotic methods were fuelled by high creativity.
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“But in 2004, when we stopped touring for three years, that was a big hole. It wasn’t quite clear what Yes had. So it was a miracle we got back with Fly From Here. We’re now into a streamlined, happy environment where music is what we work at most of the year – which is a lovely thing.”
Geoff Downes adds: “It’s a great progression for Yes; it’s turned out really well. We don’t have Alan any more, which is a great sadness for us all, but Jay Schellen has been part of the setup since 2016, so we’ve had seven years of working together.”
Downes is a famously prolific writer – his partnership with Asia bandmate John Wetton alone produced dozens of successful songs, and more recently he’s been working with Chris Braide in DBA. But he has just one co-credit on Mirror To The Sky: “I think Jon Davison’s writing has really come to the forefront on this album, and we really just let him run with the ball,” Downes says.
“I always work on the principle that if someone’s got to sing something, they’ve got to really believe it. I think that was very much the case here. When I was writing with John Wetton, I was very conscious of the fact that he always really delivered something he believed in.”
And – music to many ears – Downes confirms there are lengthy tracks aplenty on the new record: “We felt we needed some bigger tracks on there. That was the criticism levelled at Heaven & Earth, that there weren’t any big epics on that, not very Yes-like. We had a couple of longer tracks on The Quest and with this one we’ve gone overboard!”
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Sherwood insists the long tracks are voluminous strictly on merit: “It’s really, truly down to the music, and what feels right for us. Yes are known for having longer songs, which I’ve always been a fan of. That’s why I’m in the prog genre – I always felt constrained by having to write three-and-a-half minutes.”
Mirror To The Sky’s centrepiece is the 14-minute title track, which begins with one of Howe’s most compelling guitar figures: coiling, hard-edged, relentless, it recalls his most aggressive playing, such as on Soundchaser and Awaken. It’s a real go-to track for naysayers who claim Yes have lost it – or aren’t even Yes any more.
This is a different period of Yes – a different chapter – and we’re always talking about making new music
Geoff Downes
“Jon was here at my studio, and I was just playing some things,” Howe explains. “He said, ‘This bit’s really good.’ He put bass and a rhythm guitar on to mock this idea up. That Jon liked it pushed me forwards, and I tied it up with something else that was around, some slightly crazy guitar stuff. There was also a small fragment of a song where the words are about ‘dreams of the sky without fire.’ Jon said, ‘Wait, this is fantastic!’ He went away and wrote the middle; that’s the Mirror To The Sky section.
“We just kept finding more ways of using that opening theme. We hammer it out with something that really gives that guitar at the front a different stance. And then suddenly the orchestra comes in!”
The record arrives a mere 19 months after The Quest – the quickest turnaround in pure studio projects since the nine months between The Yes Album and Fragile in 1971. With a gap created by another postponement of the Relayer album tour, does this current flurry of creativity bode well for a third, rapid-fire studio release?
“Well, we might have plans, and we might not,” says Howe. “But we’re certainly not going to say what they are! You know, we’ve just made two albums, so let’s put it into perspective.”
His colleagues, however, are more forthcoming. “I think we’re always looking at doing more,” says Downes. “This is a different period of Yes – a different chapter – and we’re always talking about making new music. I think it’s important not just for the fans, but also for ourselves.”
Sherwood adds: “It’s early going, obviously, but I didn’t imagine we’d be as swiftly into this record as we were coming out of The Quest. Things seem to be moving at a pace that even I didn’t expect, so I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to making another record, that’s for sure.”
Mirror To The Sky is on sale via Century Media.
