It was released on 16 July 2014 on Frontiers Records and is the first album with lead vocalist Jon Davison and the final album to feature bassist Chris Squire before his death in 2015.
The group started preparing new material for an album during the 2013 leg of their Album Series Tour.
Davison took an active approach with the songwriting, travelling to the homes of the other band members to collaborate on songs. Yes enlisted producer Roy Thomas Baker (who had previously worked with the band during recording sessions in 1979) and future Yes bassist Billy Sherwood to complete the mixing.
The first time Yes worked with producer Roy Thomas Baker was on 1979's ill-fated "Paris Sessions," a group of recordings that was aborted when Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman temporarily left the band.
Different versions of some of the songs ended up on 1980's Drama, produced by Trevor Horn, while others appeared on various members' solo records. Heaven & Earth is Yes' first new recording since 2010's surprisingly good Fly from Here, helmed by Horn. Singer Benoit David, who replaced an ailing Anderson, has himself been displaced by Glass Hammer frontman Jon Davison. At least initially, the latter's voice is nearly a dead ringer for Anderson's.
Listening to Heaven & Earth makes one wonder about what happened to the spirited playing and vigor of rediscovery displayed on Fly from Here.
This is as far from prog rock as Yes has traveled; it's even further afield than the pop experiments on Talk or The Ladder. With Baker at the helm, what transpires is a slick, edgeless, badly executed attempt at adult-oriented pop, and for that, you need real hooks, and none exist here.
Alan White's drums are almost exclusively used merely as rhythm tracks; their mix is ribbon thin. Chris Squire's fat, distorted, roiling bass, which has been a guiding signature of the band's sound since inception, is reined in so much it is nearly generic.
Steve Howe's use of volume pedals and cross-channel shifting -- even in his fills -- shows little of his inventive playing acumen. Geoff Downes' keyboards are so soft, decorative, and "pretty," they displace whatever energy the arrangements might have called for.
There are a few places where Yes does come across as something resembling its former self: the musical architecture in the (first) bridge in "Step Beyond," the brief crescendo-building in the middle section of "Light of the Ages," and in the longest and final track, "Subway Walls."
On the latter, after a sleepy two-minute keyboard intro, Squire's bass reclaims some of its authority and drives White's syncopated beats as well as enjoyable head-to-head interplay between Howe and Downes engaging in knotty twists and turns, resulting in solid organ and guitar solos. But one track does not an album make.
This set makes one yearn for (some of) the prog excesses of old; Heaven & Earth is the most creatively challenged and energetically listless record in Yes' catalog
Track listing
1. "Believe Again" (Jon Davison, Steve Howe) - 8:01
2. "The Game" (Chris Squire, Davison, Gerard Johnson) - 6:49
3. "Step Beyond" (Howe, Davison) - 5:34
4. "To Ascend" (Davison, Alan White) - 4:40
5. "In a World of Our Own" (Davison, Squire) - 5:19
6. "Light of the Ages" (Davison) - 7:37
7. "It Was All We Knew" (Howe) - 4:11
8. "Subway Walls" (Davison, Geoff Downes) - 9:02
Japanese bonus track
9. "To Ascend (Acoustic Version)" (Davison, White) - 4:35
Long Island bonus tracks
10. "Fragile" (Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman) - 5:22
11. "Starship Trooper (LIVE 2018)" (Howe, Squire, Anderson) - 11:16
12. "It Was All We Knew (Demo Version)" (Howe) - 3:39
13. "Roundabout (Hall Of Fame Performance)" (Anderson, Howe) - 8:16
Yes
- Jon Davison – lead and backing vocals, acoustic guitar on "Believe Again" and "Light of the Ages"
- Steve Howe – electric, acoustic and steel guitars, backing vocals, Portuguese guitar on "To Ascend"
- Chris Squire – bass, backing vocals
- Alan White – drums, percussion
- Geoff Downes – keyboards, computer programming
- Gerard Johnson – additional keyboards on "The Game"
Production
- Roy Thomas Baker – production
- Dave Dysart – engineering
- Eric Corson – engineering
- Daniel Meron – assistant engineer
- Billy Sherwood – mixing, engineering on backing vocals
- Maor Appelbaum – mastering
- Kate Haynes – sleeve design
- Roger Dean – cover art, Yes logo
Released: 16 July 2014
Recorded: 6 March–14 May 2014 Studio Neptune Studios, Los Angeles
Genre: Progressive rock
Length: 84:36
Label - Frontiers Records
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