|
It’s a wellknown fact that aside from
Yes, Chris Squire likes the collaboration with his American friend
Billy Sherwood. The ex-World Trade icon has always been a fanatic
Yes fan and became a member of the band for a short stint putting
forward his distinctive musical mark. Firmly rooted in AOR tradition
yet with a right amount of Yes influences, the Squire/Sherwood
collaboration known as Conspiracy delivers it’s second album
entitled “The unknown”. Released in time for the European Yes tour,
the music is more modern, more commercial, more predictable if you
like than any other material Yes has ever released. You might think
that Squire’s bassplaying will be less dominant in the mix but then
you haven’t heard ‘New world’ which once again drives on some of the
best Rickenbacker to be heard in years ! Especially the drumming of
Jay Schellan tends to give the music a more straightforward approach
rather than injecting yet another fair dose of progressive
highlights. Of course Sherwood adds a decent amount of details
illustrating what a great set of ears this guy has. The strange
thing is that after the release of the Squire/Sherwood debut
“Conspiracy” in 2000, Billy confided that he was working on a new
project with Jonathan Elias, Jimi Haun, Michael Sherwood, Jay
Schellan and a host of others. The project would be called ‘The
Unknown’ and would have been like Mahavishnu Orchestra meets Yes.
Three years down the line and the second Conspiracy album hits the
shelves called “The unknown” so let’s keep our ears peeled for the
smallest Mahavishnu hint !
I don’t think I’ll offend
Chris Squire by saying he’s not the world’s most fantastic singer.
He does what is needed but is not the ideal lead vocalist which is
why his voice blends rather well with other singers. Therefor
Conspiracy is ideal for him as it lifts Billy’s singing and at
certain times takes you right back to certain Yes highlights. ‘1/2 a
world away’ even includes some real Howe-like playing by Billy
whilst Jay Schellan’s playing here goes more towards the pure energy
and diversity associated with progressive rock. Of course Billy’s
knowledge of studio trickery comes very handy here. With ‘The wheel’
some more ace guitarwork is introduced whilst calm acoustic guitar
sets the pace for ‘Premonitions’ which once again contains some
eastern elements. The song to look out for on this album simply has
to be the 11’21” long titletrack ‘The unknown’ which starts with
acoustic guitar and some neatly tucked away dashes of mellotron.
About halfway through Billy delivers kind of a bluesy electric
guitarsolo backed by the symphonic fringes we all love so well. In
fact I don’t think a real orchestra has been used here but the total
sound would benefit so much from having a real orchestra as
authentic violins would certainly lift this song to even higher
regions. As it is now the symphonic pattern bubbles under even
giving way to a Morricone-like harmonica. Initially this track would
have been called ‘Don’t fear the unknown’ as planned to be executed
by Bily’s sideproject together with his brother Michael. The second
Conspiracy album ends with the bonustrack ‘I could’ which is nothing
more than the same recipe repeated. Mainly the vocal overdubs are to
be found throughout this album containing some Trevor Rabin period
Yes references.
This certainly is not a bad album and as you listen more
to it you also tend to like certain things more but it still is not
a Yes album nor is it a follow-up to Squire’s “Fish out of water”
solo album. Instead it’s the perfect marriage between AOR and prog
resulting in something which is closer to ‘Owner of a lonely heart’
than ‘Close to the edge’. However if there’s one genre of prog that
finally might get some airplay then this might be it. It certainly
is an album which might do better in the States than in Europe. |
