FLASH (1972) / OUT OF OUR HANDS (1973)

Flash was the post-Yes vehicle for Peter Banks, and if you like that group's early sound (Yes!, Time & A Word, even The Yes Album in places), you'll find a lot to like in this CD, which combines the first and third Flash albums in one package.

The first album is generally considered their best, with the most developed, lengthy cuts recalling in places "Astral Traveller," "Yours Is No Disgrace" and "Perpetual Change." Only the acoustic "Morning Haze" and the moody closing ballad "The Time It Takes" slow down the frenzied jamming. The production is by Derek Lawrence, who did such a great job on all the early Wishbone Ash albums (another touchstone, I think). Engineering is by Martin Birch, who'd go on to work with Deep Purple, Rainbow, & Iron Maiden, so you can rest assured the sound is clean and loud! Another strength of the debut is that Tony Kaye, also newly fired from Yes, guests on keyboards (unlike the later two Flash albums, which are basically a showcase for Banks), so you get some nice solo interplay between these two Yes refugees.

Out Of Our Hands, the underrated third "concept" album, complements the debut well; Banks and Bennett add a few keyboard parts to the layered guitars, so the texture of the two records is fairly similar. The band self-produces but to no detriment. What is different on OOOH is a more calculated commercial approach: shorter songs, clearer attempts at hooks and choruses, and a tighter, less jamming style. The concept that underpins the songs is trite and unoriginal: an alien savior, sent on a mission a la The Day The Earth Stood Still, is betrayed and returns disappointed to his planet Catalina. Er...what? Honestly, without the LP's liner notes and a close reading of the lyrics, you'd never have picked up any plot or coherence, but that wouldn't be any great loss.

The songs could use more development (more jamming!) but especially in the latter half (the old side 2) the band locks into some very satisfying prog riffing that recalls Wetton- era King Crimson titles like "Fallen Angel" or "Easy Money." Check out "Psychosync" or "Manhattan Morning," the album's absolute high point, with its Western imagery, lead bass, and ascending Lark's Tongues-style chords. Banks really lets loose on the fade-out, too. You also get some quite lovely ballads in "Man of Honour" (check out Banks's acoustic runs on the fade-out there, as well) and the Crimson-meets-Yes closer "Shadows." Again, it's all great but under-developed, as if the band is clearly trying to rein in their tendency to 12-minute epics (see In The Can, their second record, for more of those).

A comment on the musicianship: clearly the group sounds like early Yes, especially with Ray Bennett's propulsive bass and soaring guitar, though Mike Hough's drums are more on the beat than Bruford ever liked to be. The one difficulty is Colin Carter's voice; getting use to him is half of the challenge of growing to like Flash. He can be a bit shrill and nasal in place, as he sounds like a bad hybrid of Anderson, Robert Plant and Ian Lloyd, emulating their worst rather than their best qualities.

Finally, the package is disappointing. You do get basically both album covers and inner jackets, but the choice and arrangement of photos seems backwards: the smaller, more intricate images (the debut's inner photo montage, OOOH's complex outer cover) are reduced, while the already large images (the famous flashing miniskirt and the inner group photo from OOOH) get the full treatment. A better use of the space could have provided a full reproduction of each cover plus those group photos in greater detail. The annoyance is compounded by an uninformed and basically useless sets of liner notes and the reissue producers wasting a page on their own personal thank-yous (who cares?), space that could have been used for more of the album credits (musician details, for example?) or the lyrics to OOOH. There's also a glitch on 08:13 of track 3.

In summary, early Yes fans or lovers of guitar-based prog should enjoy discovering Flash through this excellent pairing. The package could be much better, but the music is terrific. Give it some time and even the rough edges will wear off.