The new Prog Collective album is out.
A very mixed review at Ultimate Classic Rock, to say the least....
A very mixed review at Ultimate Classic Rock, to say the least....
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You can listen to the full album here:
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Gave it a full listen and I'm sure some of you will enjoy this, but the best part of the album for me was when the last track ended.Comment
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I’ll check out Year Of The Cat, because I always liked the song but could never get into Stewart’s affected vocal delivery.Comment
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I used to like Sherwood's solo and side projects quite a lot. Up till around 2010. After that, with the exception of Circa:'s "Valley of the Windmill" not much of his output has appealed to me unfortunately.Comment
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The Sound of Silence with Jon D and Geoff is interesting, since they wrote Subway Walls which may have been inspired by the “words of the profits” lyric.Comment
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It was kind of disappointing to me that this was just a collection of cover songs instead of original material. The first two Prog Collective albums were all new songs, and the third one included six original songs before starting in with cover songs (Something I attributed to it coming out at a point in the pandemic when a lot of artists either hadn't yet been able to complete albums intended for that time period, or were holding albums back for after the stores reopened and such. I just appreciated Billy getting us six new songs, including one very topical one, under the circumstances, and was very willing to accept covers to fill it out!). Unfortunately, in retrospect, that now looks like a transitional album to an all-cover format of "various famous artists perform various famous songs, but not the ones they originally performed on".
I do realize that the record label probably asked for this, and the alternative probably wasn't a new Prog Collective album of original songs, but perhaps things like a covers collection with a different project/band name, or nothing at all. And doing stuff like this is probably part of what helps makes the overall financial picture that allows Sherwood to put out so much original material under his own name and as part of various bands make sense.
Still, not really my thing on paper. I'm not big on covers in general (Maybe in a live environment where you can't get the original artists or the new members of their old band on stage- but compilations like this are competing with the original MP3s/records/CDs/whatevers for your home listening).
With all that said, I listened to this album on YouTube, and I thought it was good for what it was. All but one song sounded nice (This version of "Fire and Rain" was the one song that really didn't work for me), and thought they did a reasonable job of taking folk songs and oldies and making thing sound more like late 20th century rock songs (Last three decades of the century, depending on the song). There is the occasional keyboard or guitar solo that is obviously original to this project and make for a more palatable version of the songs for rock fans.
I like Jon Davison on "Sound of Silence"- though I did muffle a laugh when he started singing "Hello darkness, my old friend" (I love Juano's singing, but there is nothing dark about it at all) until I refreshed my memory by listening to the original Simon and Garfunkel version and realized that their delivery of that line wasn't exactly dark and foreboding either and that this was in the spirit of the original (Personally, I'd have been tempted to get Ozzy Osbourne to cover the song, or at least to sing the first line, but I don't think his name is in Billy Sherwood's rolodex.). I actually think Davison has a better voice than the original artists (I'm glad I'm typing this on the Internet where people can't throw tomatoes at me.
). That song turned out well.
I also have to admire Billy's devotion to putting Candace Night on everything he can. I assume he is playing a long game wherein eventually her husband, Ritchie Blackmore, will record a guitar solo for something Sherwood related (Don't waste it on a cover song, I'll take an original Sherwood/Yes/Arc of Life/Prog Collective/World Trade/Prog Collective/Asia song with a Blackmore solo, please. ). Still, she actually does a very good job on this album- I don't know if she's improving, Sherwood has figured out the optimal way to produce her, or if it was just a good match between song and artist, but her version of "It's Too Late" works for me in a way most of her past material for collections like this has not.
Like most cover collections, I think I'll probably take a pass on buying this one. Covers just aren't, generally, my bag. However, if I were going to buy a collection of covers sometime soon (Which I doubt, but you never know), it'd probably be this one. There's nothing wrong with the execution, it's just the wrong concept for me.
I'm definitely up for the next Billy Sherwood solo album and the second Arc of Life album, though, both of which are said to be basically complete, the Circa: album he was working on a year or two back (If it's still a thing), and the Yes album the whole band is working on (Though I've learned not to hold my breath on new Yes albums when they are first mentioned. Sometimes those take a long and winding road [A song that's not on this collection, but which I would bet that Billy Sherwood has at some point been involved in a cover of. ] before they become publicly available.). I'm a new music guy.
Last edited by downbyariver; 07-05-2022, 09:04 PM."A lot of the heavier conversations I was having with Chris toward the end were about his desire for this thing to go forward. He kept reiterating that to me. [...] He kept telling me, 'No matter what happens, Yes needs to continue moving forward and make great music. So promise me that that's something you want to do.'. And I have to keep making music. It's just what I do. [...] I'm a fan of the band and I want to see it thrive and that means new music." -Billy SherwoodComment
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I've only listened through once, but I thought "The Sound of Silence" was one of the better pieces.Comment
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I listened to Sound Of Silence and Year Of The Cat.
I’ll keep looking for an instrumental version of the original for the second song...Comment
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