SKY

Sky's debut album was published in a time when the terms "prog rock", "art rock" and other derived ones meant something vile, pathetically pretentious and ultimately worthless. Sky was actually a supergroup consisting of veterans united for the task of making intelligent and attractive music for the turn of the new decade - former Curved Air founding member Monkman, together with three excellent and well reputed session musicians (Flowers, Peek and Fry) and classical guitar maestro Williams, joined forces in order to perpetuate the ideology of combining rock, classical and jazz, and to do so, they decided to alternate attractive, complex musical ideas of their own with foreign ideas excerpted from the area of chamber music (and occasionally, traditional folk as well). There are also some hints to pop sensibility, which helps the melodic lines and harmonic layers to come to the fore as a clear point of reference for all musicians. While it is clear all throughout the album that each individual member incarnates a polished example of mastery and finesse at their respective instrument, the main point is that the interplay between all players is the absolute star in this casting, and not only tow or three of them. And this is the major virtue of this album (and of Sky's overall style): the fluid combination of all individual efforts into a common sonic source. It is the 5-part suite 'Where Opposites Meet' - which filled the whole B side of the vinyl - where all the band's virtues are fully exposed: that makes it the definitive highlight if the album. On the poppier side of things, 'Westway' and 'Cannonball' manage to be quite catchy while retaining some of the prototypical elegance of symph prog, while tracks 3 and 4 show us the band's academic side. Among the shorter numbers, my personal fave is the beautiful, relaxing 'Carillon': I wish the band had arranged it properly in order to extend it a bit longer. After all this praise, let me tell you something about my collateral reservations on this album: I feel that this repertoire lacks some extra energy that is potentially there, but not properly worked on and developed (except for the aforementioned suite). My guess is that the fivesome chose to focus in their capability to create exquisite music while they were getting to get increasingly acquainted with each other: once they did so, the resulting energy took off, as their next two albums would eventually prove. But by the time their debut album was recorded, that special spark was yet to find its "full frontal" light. All things considered, my personal rating for this album stands somewhere between "just good" and "excellent": anyway, it sure makes a great entry in any good prog collection.