The Syn - Big Sky (2009)

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The Syn - Big Sky (2009)

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Active in the mid-‘60s, The Syn were a precursor to Yes. Like Genesis, they formed by the merging of two local school pal bands. But certain elements prevented them from having a Genesis-like career. About six years ago, a longtime virtual friend of mine and maintainer of a Yes-related information web site basically originated The Syn’s reunion.

There is something very touching about this album indeed. Maybe it’s a young Nardelli himself, still aspiring in this millennium to a Fab Four-like (hope and) glory (“Milo”, “Running Out of Time”, “The Reason”), with a Mark Knopfler-like voice and a Dire Straits-like orchestration (“Universal Witness”, “Running Out of Time”). This 10 tracks/51-minute album is Nardelli’s baby indeed, yet the others make their contributions as well. In particular, the surreal backing vocals of Dorie Jackson (the daughter of the ex-Van der Graaf Generator sax/flute player Dave Jackson) are fantastic.

Nardelli also credits himself with a Nardellitron. This means he either considers himself melodic, or customized the mellotron he plays in the title track and in its reprise, or both.

Tom Brislin does a beautiful Hammond-like solo in “Devils and Demons”. The Police’s Synchronicity album could have as well included a track like “New Reality”. Not only here, Francis Dunnery’s guitar playing can be so Hovian at times. In the catchy “Universal Witness”, A Night at the Opera’s Queen shakes hands with ‘80s synth-pop.

For about four minutes, “Kings, Clowns, Cardinals” is like adding Maggie Reilly-like vocals to Steve Howe’s “The Clap”, then suddenly growing into a one minute and a half pop finale. “Madonna and Child” blends jazzy backing vocals with Yes-ish ingredients.

Remarkable is also the psychedelic artwork from the front of the germinating seed to the back cover where hope, dreams, acoustic guitar, keyboard, stars, “make love not war”, flowers, the Earth, an angel and maybe Nardelli himself as a child hang in a wishing tree.

By Eduard Antoniu

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The Syn - Big Sky (2009)

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The Syn Biography

For a band that only made two singles, Syn are quite well-remembered by British rock collectors, principally because two of their members – guitarist Peter Banks and bassist Chris Squire – eventually surfaced in the first lineup of Yes in 1968. Their two singles, both issued in 1967 in the U.K. on Deram, were pretty solid efforts in their own right. These charted their transition from mod to psychedelic guitar rock, rather in the manner of a much more famous British psychedelic cult band from the same era, Tomorrow (with Steve Howe on guitar). Their first single, "Created By Clive," was a foppish Carnaby Street takeoff that the band disliked; the fine B-side, the hard mod pop tune "Grounded," featured high soul harmonies and interplay between organ and sparkling guitar, and was much more indicative of the band's sensibilities.

Their promise really bloomed on their next and last 45, "14 Hour Technicolour Dream," one of the best obscure British psychedelic singles (indeed one of the best British psychedelic singles by any band). Inspired by the 1967 psychedelic London festival of the same name, it was an exhilarating distillation of the best attributes of British pop-psychedelia – a hook-happy ebullient melody, precise harmonies, unexpected structural twists and turns, Who-like drumming, and tasteful guitar distortion – into a compact package. It wasn't a hit, though (in fact it was only used as the B-side of "Flowerman"), and the band broke up in early 1968. Banks and Squire played in another psychedelic band, Mabel Greer's Toyshop, for a few months before becoming founder-members of Yes. The four songs from the Syn singles have cropped up on numerous compilations of British psych-pop rarities; all four, and a demo of "Flowerman," also appear on Peter Banks' Can I Play You Something?, a compilation of odds and ends from bands that Banks was involved with prior to joining Yes.

by Richie Unterberger

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The Syn - Big Sky (2009)

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The Syn - Big Sky (2009)

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