Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks - True (2024)

Country: UK/USA
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 23 Aug 2024
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Official Website - Jon Anderson | Official Website - Richie Castellano | Wikipedia - Jon Anderson | Wikipedia - Richie Castellano

There's some history here to kick off with. Jon Anderson is the former lead singer of Yes, of course, last heard on 1000 Hands: Chapter One, a thirty years in the making album finally released in 2019. He's backed here by the Band Geeks, which are a project of Richie Castellano, currently working as the rhythm guitarist and keyboard player in Blue Öyster Cult. Band Geek started as a podcast but grew into a band that covered songs on YouTube, with a constantly changing line-up of friends and guests. Anderson appreciated their covers of Yes songs enough to tour with them covering classic Yes tracks. That collaboration has now reached another level with this album of original music.

So, it's not Yes, but it absolutely sounds like Yes and not only because it prominently features Jon Anderson's iconic voice. There are overt Yes moments all over the album like a rash, starting with the phrasing of True Messenger, but especially including the bass work on Shine On, the beat early in Counties and Countries and the acoustic guitar intro to Make It Right. Clearly these musicians love Yes and not just because they're backing Jon Anderson. The era isn't singular but is mostly a combination of late seventies and early eighties Yes, a point when the songs were shorter and far more commercial in the main.

That era is backed up by occasional hints at what Anderson did in Jon and Vangelis, Counties and Countries veering into a Vangelis-esque fanfare and some of Anderson's vocal approach from that project. However, it isn't for long and the song clocks in at a breath under ten minutes, so we've generally forgotten those moments by the time we get to the end, with a prominent jazzy keyboard solo that isn't remotely like anything Vangelis might produce. Anderson merely has a lot of history to draw on and clearly not everything here sounds like his best known material with Yes.

I should mention that not every song is long, with Counties and Countries the shortest of only two worthy of that description, the other being Once Upon a Dream, a sixteen and a half minute epic. In fact, three of the nine tracks are done under four minutes with four others ranging from four to six. Some of them are even relatively straightforward for prog rock, Shine On the most obvious of those, regardless of that elegant basswork from Castellano.

Even though the songs take different approaches, the album is consistently strong, though there are clear highlights. I'd call out Once Upon a Dream as the best of them, and I'll cover that shortly, but I like Make It Right a lot too. It's a slower, more deliberate song but it has a gentle majesty to it. Even when it ramps up somewhat in its second half, it keeps that majesty in the way that a band like Magnum almost patented. It's another simpler song too, without much that's progressive, but it's highly effective nonetheless, all the way to the gospel moments at the end. It's a song that we feel rather than marvel at, even if there are moments of the latter.

The gentleness of Make It Right also continues into Realization Part Two, one of the three minute songs, which also adds a mild African flavour. It's only hinted at in beats and late vocal harmonies, but it could easily be funked up and jazzed up to fit fairly on Paul Simon's Graceland album. If I had to pick another highlight, it would be True Messenger, which opens the album as it means to go on. It's a strong opener, but I'd rank it after these highlights but above everything else.

I should emphasise that none of the lesser songs let the side down. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the closer, Thank God, for instance, even though it opens like a Police song, but that's partly because it can't hope to do much in comparison to the sixteen and a half minute epic before it. And that leads me back into Once Upon a Dream, which is likely to be everyone's standout track, ironically given that much of the album's success is in starting and finishing things in far fewer minutes.

I love the vocal rhythms that open Once Upon a Dream, which hearken back to some of the songs on 1000 Hands originating in Anderson's vocal exercises. He has a great choice of words for their sounds and, while I'm not expecting vocal coaches to react to a song this long, I'd love to hear what they might have to say about this opening. Of course, there's time enough for a lot more than just vocals and it stands up to that expectatoin. There's a Rainbow-esque guitar solo early on and an angelic midsection with copious use of triangle, not to forget a particularly wild transition in the thirteenth minute. It's a gift that keeps on giving.

And that holds true for the album as a whole. I'd say that this is better than 1000 Hands, but not by much, maybe not by enough to get a higher rating from me. Should I round a 7½ up or down? Going up would mean it sitting on my Highly Recommended List for the year. I think I'm OK with that. The most important thing, thinking on a grander scale than just one album, is that this is easily better than the most recent Yes album, The Quest from 2021. And I see that Alan White has left Yes, so it has to be said that Steve Howe is the only long term member left. Maybe those reunion calls could get somewhere. And, on the basis of this, maybe they should.