Over a four-album span, the Prog Collective has found a musical comfort zone. It’s best described equally “Billy Sherwood and Friends.” A two-stint member of Aye, Sherwood serves as producer and multi-instrumentalist savant on the sessions, flying in a series of file-shared guest turns that were at beginning intriguing but have become at times somewhat confusing. The same, quite frankly, can exist said for the selected songs.

The Prog Collective’s self-titled 2012 debut was dotted with originals and featured assists from entirely expected figures like Alan Parsons, Tony Levin, Rick Wakeman and John Wetton, among others.
Epilogue, released a year afterward, saw Sherwood constructing some very welcome partial Yes reunions. By the time we get to 2021’s
World on Hold, still, the collective has begun to stray well abroad from prog. Steve Hackett and Jethro Tull‘s Martin Barre were suddenly joined by … David Clayton-Thomas of Claret, Sweat & Tears? Each anthology seemed to have fewer and fewer new songs, and the selected covers hardly fit the mold. During
World on Agree, New York Dolls‘ David Johansen could be found taking on … the Doors‘ “People Are Foreign”?

The group also updated Boston‘south decidedly unproggy “More than Than a Feeling.” By its very title,
Songs We Were Taught
promises more than of the same head-scratching incongruities – and information technology fully delivers as they render to well-trod favorites from Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens and the Band, amid others. Hard to imagine whatever of those folks arriving in an aquatarkus, you know? At the same time, the Prog(?) Collective now finds Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal of Guns N’ Roses, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and a returning Clayton-Thomas among its ranks. Three other electric current or former members of Yes appear, just so practise Dweezil Zappa and Steve Morse of Deep Imperial. Which begs the question: What if we simply called information technology the Collective, without the Prog? How would
Songs We Were Taught
hold upwardly without the weighty assumptions associated with this whole Moog-spinning, cloud-continuing, sorcerer-starring, classical-swiping genre? Answer: pretty well, surprisingly enough.

Morse and Roine Stolt split up “Summertime Cakewalk” somewhere between Seals & Crofts‘ original jasmine-scented retention and the metallic ecstasy of the Isley Brothers’ subsequent update. Barre adroitly handles his function on James Taylor‘s “Fire and Rain,” even if Sonja Kristina’s vocal is far too formal. Other than some extended instrumental breaks, at that place’south not a lot of prog. Information technology’due south just as well since some of the tracks were particularly poor candidates for really progging up – including “The Sound of Silence,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and “It’southward Too Late.” The results are as varied as the source material. Carole King‘s song is one of this set’s biggest revelations, with a gorgeous vocal by Candice Night of Ritchie Blackmore‘s ren-faire folk band Blackmore’s Night. Jon Davison and Geoff Downes plow “The Sound of Silence” into an blusterous confection – all Garfunkel reverie, without Simon’s morbid wit. Wishbone Ash’south Martin Turner and violinist Jerry Goodman don’t do much, good or bad, with Dylan.

On the other manus, Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat” was ever well suited for a prog turn, and Sherwood does a credible job in collaboration with David Sancious, who was a fellow member of the E Street Band and has backed Peter Gabriel. Thal’s plough is inevitably the heaviest of the bunch. “House of the Ascent Sun” finds Clayton-Thomas trapped in a very weird Steve Hillage-driven vehicle. On the other hand, Rod Silverish and Baxter approach “The Weight” by the Band with a very welcomed delicacy. Leaving such small, bluntly idiosyncratic achievements bated, the Prog Collective finds itself at a creative crossroads. Sherwood nonetheless has an impressive number of buddies. Simply are they out of ideas? Are they even prog anymore?
Songs We Were Taught
doesn’t accept those answers. Maybe the next album will.

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