[.ca] Olias of Sunhillow

one star after one listen:
I bought Olias of Sunhillow after being a huge YES fan for years including Jon Anderson's better solos: Change We Must, Deseo, Song of Seven, and Animation. I actually thought this was a new CD in 1994, so while in Japan I shelled out $25 for it. I taped it, listened once in my walkman ...and threw the CD into the trash. Seriously, it is sitting in a landfill in Japan. Well, at least I had my tape. A few months later, I listened again and found some parts that grabbed me. A couple of more listens, and I realized I threw away a great CD. For obvious reasons, --Anonymous

Yes's calm side...:
Just like a silence after a storm. Thats how i can define it. You will hear some nice and calm melodies here. If you only like the pure and powerfull rock, leave this, but if you enjoy jon's works, please, dont think: take it! It sounds something like Tales of Topographic Oceans without the fast parts, but, with stronger melodies!! I really enjoyed this record and heard it many times (and still, everytime looks like its the first time im hearing). Well, hope i could have helped you!

This is the ULTIMATE piece of music in this genre:
Jon Anderson is lucky that he has YES to do. Because he is so spaced out I dont think he could function in our world if he had to be like the rest of us. I dont know what the instrumentation is on this album but nothing sounds like guitars and drums.....more like harps and bells and lots of voices and harmonies and I must say that it is the best piece of modern music that these ears have heard. I got the album years ago and it was a little much for me. I was expecting something like a YES album. But now after all these years I am completely BLOWN AWAY by this guy! From waaaaay out in the cosmos somewhere Jon Anderson conceived of and recorded this awesome work that I dont think has a peer in "modern" or " rock" or "progressive" music. It is entirely in a class by itself. It would be impossible to make a follow up album to something like this so its all your going to get------so...............what are you waiting for?

The pinnacle of fantasy prog-rock:
This album is without a doubt one of the masterpieces of the fantasy prog-rock movement of the mid 1970's. Crafted entirely by Anderson himself (lyrics, music, and included 1-point font story in the liner notes), it seems at first an absolutely self-indulgent exercise, though subsequent listens reveals a complete and entire world, with movements between soft, drifting melodies, thundering rhythmic mystical tribal hymns, and soaring vocal overtures. If you close your eyes, you feel you're in a totally different world, experiencing a fantastical, joyous adventure you barely understand. This is Jon's magnum opus, and one of the most thoroughly moving albums in modern musical history.

Acoustic Mind F**k:
For anyone who has ever dug Prog-rock and isn't afraid to admit to guilty pleasures, slap on yer headphones and drop into the beanbag! Love Yes? Love this! I can't tell you how much this sort of flimsy crap takes me just where I want to go. And the Harp! Who else but Jon! When else but now!

• Ocean Song
• Meeting (Garden of Geda) / Sound Out the Galleon
• Dance of Ranyart / Olias (To Build the Moorglade)
• Qoquaq Ën Transic/Naon/Taransic Cö
• Flight of the Moonglade
• Solid Space
• Moon Ra / Chords / Song of Search
• To the Runner
• To the Runner