The Syn - Armistice Day (2007)

Armistice Day album by Syn was released Jan 23, 2007 on the Umbrello label. Before there was Yes, there was The Syn. The legendary Syn, featuring Yes bassist Chris Squire, original vocalist Steve Nardelli and Yes drummer Alan White, joined by world renowned musicians Shane Theriot and Gerard Johnson have followed up The Syn's critically acclaimed Syndestructible cd and recent world tour with their new album, Armistice Day. The cd features an amazing mix of studio and live acoustic tracks recorded over the past year and with a entral theme of 'Peace and Understanding' running through the tracks, from the haunting "Silent evolution" to the title track "Armistice Day" The album also includes a live acoustic version of their classic masterpiece, "Cathedral of Love", recorded on January 10th, 2006 at XM Radio Studios in Washington DC. Personnel: Chris Squire , Steve Nardelli (vocals); Shane Theriot (guitar); Gerard Johnson (keyboards).

~ cduniverse

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