of prog rock in the early 1970s, the arrival of the Yes album in 1972 was not unlike the release of the Beatles’ some five years earlier. Like that early psychedelic landmark, was a sprawling, genre-melding sonic wash of sound unlike anything anyone had heard before. wasn’t just another album; it was a sonic journey that you experienced from one end to the other (preferably on headphones), and then, in all likelihood, repeated once the needle reached the inner groove of side two. It’s little surprise many fans thought Yes hadn’t just gone close to the edge — they’d gone clean over it.
