FLASH

Based on its membership, Flash was a Yes spin-off band: guitarist Peter Banks and guest keyboardist Tony Kaye had each been dismissed from Yes in the couple of years preceding this, Flash's debut. But regardless of who was in the band, Flash sounds like it could've been a follow-up to, or at least a series of outtakes from, Yes's 1970 album Time and a Word.

The strongest songs here are "Small Beginnings" - - the album-opener and lead single - - and "Children of the Universe." Those two, along with the acoustic and almost folksy "Morning Haze," make up the more accessible first side. The second side opens with the thirteen-minute "Dreams of Heaven," which is twice as long as anything Yes had recorded with Banks. Despite its length, it doesn't seem overlong. The final song, "The Time it Takes," is the weakest.

Along with Two Sides of Peter Banks, Flash is probably Banks's best work outside of Yes, although to be fair, Flash is by no means a solo album. Banks co-wrote three of the songs with lead vocalist Colin Carter; the other two, "Morning Haze" and "Children of the Universe," were written by bassist Ray Bennett. I'd recommend it to fans of Yes's early work, and to those who like their early-1970s album-oriented rock with a progressive flavor.

(P.S. What am I supposed to think of the album cover? Perhaps that this is a gutsy band who cared not what politically-correct whimps thought of them?)