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It’s only natural to wonder how Yes reacted to Jon Anderson’s 2024 album with The Band Geeks. True proved that Yes’s long-serving and now long-departed former singer could still reach the spiralling highs of the mothership, and lifted the bar for modern Yes music at the same time. How would they respond? What album would they make?
Perhaps surprisingly, they embraced what the press statement accompanying the news of Aurora’s release optimistically calls “a modern workflow”. In other words, the band members recorded remotely, sending files back and forth in the ether, from home studio to home studio to home studio. And the result feels flat.
Aurora is a Yes album that sounds as if it’s relying on muscle memory rather than on real inspiration. All the constituent parts are in place: the arrangements are ambitious and interesting; the playing is faultless; Jon Davison still does a better Jon Anderson than the other Jon Andersons who’ve attempted to replace Jon Anderson; and Roger Dean’s cover art is rather lovely. But there’s no real spark, no moment when the band sound like they might attain musical nirvana – nor any sense that they’re chasing it.
However, there are moments of very real greatness. Steve Howe’s jazzy solos on the title track are a joy. His acoustic guitar and Davison’s chanting on Countermovement are prettiness personified. His deep-space chords and Billy Sherwood’s clambering bass on Ariadne are peak Yes. But Love Lies Dreaming is ponderous. Jambustin’ plods. Every time the musicians reach what might be an opportunity for lift-off, caution rules. And the entire album sounds like it might benefit if the songs were speeded up by 15 per cent.
It’s as if the distance of remote recording removed the band members’ ability to get excited by each other’s playing and react accordingly. Howe aside, Aurora sounds meek. Even Davison’s lyrics seem to look back fondly on an earlier, more golden age (Countermovement’s ‘In the age of AI, there goes you and I’, Jambustin’s ‘Don’t Kill The Whale, she’s not for sale’).
The Band Geeks proved that Yes music can still be made by musicians who truly understood the assignment; Aurora suggests someone forgot their homework. Or that the dog ate it. Yes still sound like Yes, but the spark is dimming.
