* * * * <i> Great Balls of Fire</i> * * * <i> Good Vibrations</i> * * <i> Maybe Baby</i> * <i> Running on Empty : </i> : YES AIMS LOW

* * “BIG GENERATOR.” Yes. Atco. How does a song titled “Holy Lamb (Song for Harmonic Convergence)” strike you? That likely will determine how you take to the latest offering from this one-time prog-rock giant turned unlikely ‘80s hit machine, as the central feature of the album such mix-and-match pseudo-spiritual prattlings from singer Jon Anderson as “There was a reason to explore psychedelics” (on the title cut) and “Who says there’s got to be a reason?” (from “Shoot High Aim Low”--as good a description of the record as you could ask for).

The only break from this comes when guitarist Trevor Rabin steps forward with “Love Will Find a Way,” which features this bit of romantic poetry: “Here is my heart / waiting for you / here is my soul / I eat at Chez Nous.” Really.

Back in Yes’s heyday some 15 years ago, you could at least count on some amazing instrumental work from guitarist Steve Howe and drummer Bill Bruford to distract from the numbing lyrics. But those players--and those days--are long gone. Here the band reprises neither the old prog style (though the album is riddled with needless time signature and tempo shifts and other “classical” pretentions) nor the big techno-sonics of 1983’s No. 1 hit “Owner of a Lonely Heart” (though that record’s mastermind, Trevor Horn, is back on board as co-producer).

Instead, the band sets a hodgepodge of borrowed styles (including such unlikely elements as Beach Boys/Swingle Singers harmonies and even a passage that sounds almost like a mangling of “Tequila”) in a fairly nondescript arena-rock style. Save for the reedy voice of Jon Anderson, the only thing that really sounds like Yes is “Final Eyes,” which resembles “Close to the Edge,”--recorded by an earlier version of the group in 1972.

Aim low, indeed.