The Lyres - "Stay Away/Grounded" (7'' single - 1994 Moulty Records M-104)

This is an excellent 7inch single by the Lyres. It was released by Moulty Records back at 1994. The line up of the band at the time except of course from Jeff had the long time partner on bass Rick Coraccio, Jim Janota on drums and Jack Hickey on guitar. A rather psychedelic single by the Lyres picking on these two gems. As i said on some of my earlier posts, i hate psychedelia in most cases. This is a perfect example of the opposite. The A Side's "Stay Away" originally by the Mystic Tide, is a masterpiece! A moody Mersey Beat tune heavy on psychedelics and boom! That's it! The great Julian Cope wrote on his Head Heritage :
" The group's early material is well represented by "I Wouldn't Care", "Why", "Stay Away" & "I Search For New Love." These tracks are all ultra cool stabs at a sort of Mersey-Beat sound with garage and surf rock overtones. However things really get cooking with the immortal "Mystic Eyes" (possibly influenced by Them.) "Mystic Eyes" is a pulsating death wail of garage punk oblivion. This thing just oozes all over you, Joe sounding like a second cousin of Eric Burdon on vocals while musically the Tide sound like an east coast answer to the Calico Wall. "Frustration" (not the Painted Ship track) is just a seething, full bore punk camando raid which brings to mind The Craig's "I Must Be Mad" in terms of all out intensity."
Lyres' version is faithful leaving although their unique trademark throughout the song!
On the other side we found the Syn's classic "Grounded". From what are to my knowledge, Syn were British. If you have heard about Syn rumors of being a progressive rock band, that's true... I can't stand progressive as much as i hate psychedelia. To put it mildly, through the pass of the years i found some things under the "psychedelic" tag (mostly unknown bands or maybe not so well known) that were great but i can't say the same thing for progressive...Anyway, Syn as most bands of the day at first played R&B. Before found themselves part of Yes history ( let me go throw up now...), had a sort psychedelic-pop period which is cool. Originally a B-Side on the 1967's single of "Created by Clive" on the hands of the Lyres rocketed to space! Again Jeff's company transformed the tune into a moody garage psychedelic piece not so far from the (Dutch) Outsiders territory. Oh and the refrain is simply BEAUTIFUL!
320Kbps

Stay Away/Grounded