Rightly lauded as their best in form, Yes hit on a truly remarkable hot streak when making Close to the Edge. Their progressive-rock charms had taken a bit of a fall when Rick Wakeman joined, not for any fault of his own, but the frequent shifting parts of the band meant they were never finding a comfortable groove. Fragile feels, well, as its title suggests, and it was not until Close to the Edge that the band shed its performative Britishness and skinned itself of impersonal, coy writing. Nine tracks, or three with two holding four subheadings, Close to the Edge is brilliantly ambitious and remains a staggering achievement. It is not until returning to Close to the Edge and those first, jagged notes of The Solid Time of Change that it becomes clear how taken for granted the album is. Symphonic prog-rock is an undersell of how incredible Yes becomes on Close to the Edge.
Much of the focus in Close to the Edge is on the instrumental array. Arrangements and wild guitar stylings are backed more by the classic Wakeman approach and steady percussion. Ignore the lyrics, you can afford to do so when the instrumentals are this strong. It also helps to kick against the stalemate ongoing in the writing. Relatively frail pieces of the acute designs of life, the hate-filled word and an obsession with the void which prevents it from overwhelming the heart. All of it feels ambiguous for the sake of it, never quite gripping some firm idea or even swelling into some comment on the world around them. This is what Yes constantly lacks – an indifference to the world around them and, even when they can muster some writing which suggests a connection to heartbreak or horrors of human nature, they fall well short. Progressive rock is their instrumental joy but as far as the lyrics go, Close to the Edge suffers time and again.
Yet it remains fantastic, or close to that feeling, anyway. Its more cringe-inducing moments are softly bubbling away in the back while the operatic, space-age flourishes, the massive sense of committed style, takes over. Get up, get down with I Get Up I Get Down, though the repetition sinks any chance of true sentiment or success. There is a huge bravado within Close to the Edge, a braggadocious nature which rests on repetition and, at times, feels more like hot wind with its occasional note of social turmoil than anything which can be relied on as effective or impactful dissections of their world or ours. Despite all these troubles, Close to the Edge remains an instrumental powerhouse.
When life is sawed off at the roots your hope of finding a connection to the ground is through music. Close to the Edge studies the progressive-rock form and notes the futility of politics, of streamlined education and all the modern world is based on with And You and I. It remains an immaculate lyrical flicker from the band where the instrumentals, while constant, feel invariably sparse. Still great when not picked apart. The sum of all parts and everything, but a closer look at those spinning cogs and it all feels a bit of a slump. Either the instrumentals are taking precedence because the lyrics are far off anything monumental or the writing shoves its way into the spotlight thanks to a musical break. Enjoybale work, thoroughly so, but Yes never finds the balance.
