Is Drama even a Yes album, really? Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman both left after the creative and commercial letdown of 1978’s Tormato, but Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Alan White wanted to keep on rolling. So they brought in keyboardist Geoff Downes and vocalist Trevor Horn of new-wave one-hit wonders the Buggles, who happened to share management with Yes, and voila! Drama.

Admittedly, the album starts off strong — the 10-minute “Machine Messiah” is close to metal, with Howe shredding up a storm and Downes’ keyboards adding ominous weight as Horn sings in the highest voice he can manage. He’s not Anderson (and the Anderson-Howe-Squire harmonies are absent), but he’s close. Squire’s bass is buried deeper in the mix than usual; occasional eruptions aside, it’s more like a low-end pulse than the usual co-lead instrument. (Don’t worry, it reclaims pride of place on most of the other songs.) Even when “Machine Messiah” gets quiet, it does so in a really loud way, stripping down to acoustic guitar and keyboards more reminiscent of Pink Floyd circa Wish You Were Here than Yes’ own prior work. This is a big, epic track, a perfect introduction to a new version of Yes. If the rest of the album were as strong, there would be no problem.

Unfortunately, the rest of Drama is less, well, dramatic. “Machine Messiah” is followed by “Man In A White Car,” an 80-second bit of nothing that sounds like something Peter Gabriel would have cut from one of his first solo albums. Then we get into the meat of the record, and things get weirdly patchwork and disjointed. Three tracks — “Does It Really Happen?,” “Run Through The Light,” and “Tempus Fugit” — were written before Horn and Downes joined, and two of the three have a similar vibe to Going For the One/Tormato-era Yes, filtered through of-the-moment production (the drum sound on this album is monstrously huge, comparable to that on Genesis’ Duke and Abacab). “Tempus Fugit,” though, occasionally gives the impression that Steve Howe, in particular, had been listening to the Police a lot. Meanwhile, “Into The Lens” is basically a Buggles song blown out to eight minutes with repetition and excessive, wanky solos. (The single edit, which cuts the song by more than half, is a little better.) Overall, Drama is a weird, lurching record with some very good moments but no classic tracks. It’s no wonder the band broke up following its release. What was really surprising was their reunion (sort of) and near-total sonic reinvention on 1983’s 90125, which Horn produced.