From Wikipedia:
After the ambitious concept double album Tales from Topographic Oceans, Rick Wakeman left Yes to resume his solo career. The band auditioned several prospective replacements, the closest contender being the Greek keyboardist Vangelis. He did not become a member of Yes, but these auditions paved the way for several future collaborations between Vangelis and Jon Anderson. The band finally chose Swiss-born Patrick Moraz as a replacement while this album was well into production. The album title comes from the lyrics of "The Remembering (High The Memory)" from Tales from Topographic Oceans.
As with most of Yes' previous albums, Relayer features artwork by Roger Dean. The CD release features two additional paintings by Dean.
Relayer has the same song format as 1972's Close to the Edge—a long epic on the first side, and two nine-minute pieces on the second—but employs a radically different musical style. "The Gates of Delirium" is a dense, 22-minute piece that was inspired by Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. It features lyrics about the futility of war and a lengthy instrumental middle section portraying 'battle' with galloping rhythms, martial melodies, dissonant harmonies, and clashing sound effects. The final section, in which the drive of the previous sixteen minutes is suddenly replaced by a gentle melody and a lyrical prayer for peace, was released as a U.S. single under the title "Soon" in early 1975. "Sound Chaser" is a jazzy, mostly instrumental piece that echoes the then-popular jazz fusion of Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return To Forever. "To Be Over", the gentlest piece on the album, features complex, melodic arrangements of guitar and electric sitar (at one point quoting a theme from Tales from Topographic Oceans), and arguably features Jon Anderson's most straightforward lyrics since the band's second album, Time and a Word.