Because of his close association with Yes’ signature sound, guitarist Steve Howe is assumed to have been a member of the British progressive giants from the outset—but he only came aboard with the five-man band’s third studio release, February 1971’s . Though his fretboard predecessor, Peter Banks (who later co-founded the prog-adjacent ’70s outfit Flash), foreshadowed the aural adventurism to come on July 1969’s and July 1970’s , it was that cemented the wide-ranging, time-signature-challenging sonic template for one of most forward-thinking progressive acts of the past six decades.
