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The music of Yes has an almost otherworldy sound that is occasionally hard to reconcile with the sight of five very ordinary blokes standing on a stage. As a result, Yes were arguably always better to listen to than watch. Keys to Ascension attempts to bridge the disparity between the band and their music with cutaway footage of forests and waterfalls and plenty of Roger Dean artwork. Sometimes it works; more often it feels contrived, as in "Turn of the Century," where attention is distracted from Steve Howe's fretwork by a pop video-style presentation of the Pygmalion story as told by the lyrics. This is the classic Yes lineup of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman, and Alan White, captured in concert in California in 1996 (the same concerts spawned no less than two double-CD albums). In a very generous 150 minutes of music making, they give what amounts to a greatest-hits tour of the classic Yes canon from "Time and a Word" through The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans, Going for the Once, and Tormato. For enthusiasts, it's a treat to watch Howe swapping from Martin six-string to Gibson semi-acoustic to electric mandolin to 12-string to pedal steel, sometimes all in the same song; or watch Chris Squire's apparently effortless bass technique. Occasionally they drift into Spinal Tap territory (Squire's triple neck in "Awaken"!) and overall there's a polished politeness to proceedings that hints at a band going through the motions, which is hardly surprising given that the latest material here dates from 1978. --Mark Walker
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