CONSPIRACY LIVE

This "live" album features Chris Squire's and Billy Sherwood's Conspiracy project and songs from both of their Conspiracy albums are played together with a couple of Yes songs and a couple of songs from Squire's solo debut (and to date only) album Fish Out Of Water. While Conspiracy never actually toured (as far as I know) this is one of those live-in-the-studio recordings. There is thus no genuine live feel here and no audience participation. There is apparently also a DVD version of this performance.

Days Of Wonder and Red Light Ahead are taken from the first Conspiracy album, while Conspiracy, New World, and Confess are taken from their second effort, The Unknown. The More We Live is a Yes song that was written by Squire and Sherwood and that originally appeared on the Union album in 1991. The song was re-recorded for the first Conspiracy album and has also been performed live by Sherwood's band Circa. Personally, I like this song very much and I think that Union is an excellent album (a sentiment that I know is not universally shared among Yes fans). The other Yes song appearing here is Universal Garden which first appeared on Open You Eyes in 1997, the first Yes album with Billy Sherwood as a full member of the band. Again, I like this song which has recently been re-recorded by Billy and released as a single under his own name. Being a massive fan of all eras of Yes, it is great to hear songs like these which are never played live by Yes. We are also treated to the two first tracks off Squire's Fish Out Of Water album; Hold Out Your Hand and You By My Side. This was a nice surprise and personally I think they sound better here than on the album.

This live-in-the-studio-album is a nice addition to any collection that already holds the two Conspiracy studio albums from which most of these songs are taken. Had this been a genuine live performance in front of an audience, there would probably be another atmosphere all together which could have brought this up to four stars, but as its stands it is good but not essential.