Music Disc Reviews

We never did get that planned DVD-Audio edition of Close to the Edge. Is this HD DVD close enough? Well, we do get "And You and I" and "Siberian Khatru" - and a lot more, from "I've Seen All Good People" to "In the Presence Of." Unfortunately, the Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD mixes by David Richards, though expansive, seem rather vague and muffly, as if heard from a distance. The Dolby version is slightly punchier - but on both, Jon Anderson's vocals, Rick Wakeman's keyboards, and (to a lesser extent) Steve Howe's guitar occasionally recede into the diffuse, all-around rumble. Only on the climax of "Awaken" does the sound coalesce into something powerful and glorious. The picture, doing its best with the sometimes overlit images, is certainly richer than that of the standard DVD.

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