Yes
The Ladder

THE REVIEW

If the goal of this album was to recreate the sound of the old Yes, it cannot be said that it is a complete success. "The Ladder" however has the merit of finding a good balance between pop and prog, and essentially almost every song on the album is catchy, well-produced, and not too predictable. The lyrics, as usual, don't mean a damn thing, but we were used to that anyway.

"Homeworld" is a great track. I had heard it well before buying the album, as it was included as background music in the ending credits of the beautiful video game of the same name. Honestly, it was the track that prompted me to spend my good twenty bucks to have the rest as well. To be quite truthful, the rest didn't thrill me at first: songs like "It Will Be A Good Day", "Lightning Strikes", or "Can I?", frankly gaudy, did not help me to love the album.
But then there are also things like "Face to Face", a super shiny track, with a tasty major turnaround of bass and synth, and "If Only You Knew", which is the meeting point between the two hardly reconcilable concepts of a ballad "à la festival di sanremo" and a well-done song. I swear, it works. It has a chorus simply too pleasant to be snubbed just because it's pop.
Even "Finally" touches those 'easy' strings that the hairy and annoyed progghead should dust off, but the other great gem is "New Language", which closes the album (if you overlook that footnote that is "Nine Voices") equally as worthily as "Homeworld" opened it. A prog start leading into a guitar spin to which vocals and then drums add, all followed by a minor bridge followed by a chorus with backing vocals.

A three and a half star album, which I round down because I'm a bastard.