the technical ability of his playing. Artwork Despite repeated requests from Anderson, Roger Dean was too busy to commit to designing the cover, so Anderson decided upon a series of designs by artist David Fairbrother-Roe, who was suggested by a friend. Release The album was originally set for a release around Christmas of 1975, but it was pushed back some months so Anderson could complete it. In early 1976 he was pressured by his Yes band mates to complete the album before a proposed Japanese tour, but the plan was cancelled due to Anderson's exhaustion from working on Olias. The album was released in July 1976 on Atlantic Records. The album peaked at number 8 on the UK and number 47 in the United States. "Ocean Song" was performed by Yes on their 1976 tour, but as with the other songs they performed from other members' solo albums, it was dropped after the first few weeks. Reception Writing in RAM in July 1976, Bob Edmunds described the album as being "as impressive as anything Yes have produced collectively... Musicians with greater skills (e.g. Mike Oldfield) have created instrumental works on this scale but have always been denied access to the wonderful instrument of Jon Anderson's voice. Endless tours have done nothing to detract from one of the richest, purest voices in rock…. Olias has a continuity of intensity rarely found on any album, let alone one this ambitious. It won't go down too well with those who reject anything except full-tilt rock'n'roll. But there's no way you can deny the sheer grandeur of Jon Anderson's music, no matter what opinions you hold about rock." Paul Stump's 1997 History of Progressive Rock called the album "probably the most complete manifesto to Progressive ideology (infinitely more so than [Tales from] Topographic [Oceans])." Stump praised the album's divergence from the normally accepted practices and language of mainstream rock, while noting that it is also very accessible to a mainstream rock audience. In AllMusic, Dave Connolly concluded "the idea may seem overly ambitious, but Anderson fills the record with enough magical moments to delight fans of Yes' mystic side... at no point does the music lose its spellbinding effect for lack of sonic detail. Olias of Sunhillow is faithful to the spirit of Yes, though decidedly more airy than that band's visceral style ... Olias of Sunhillow is not the missing Yes album some