THE ART OF SURVIVAL

On The Art Of Survival, Billy Sherwood slows the tempo down a little bit and takes a somewhat more electronic turn compared to previous albums. I would say that this album owes as much or more to Pink Floyd as it does to Yes. The lyrics are more political than before, treating subjects such as war and the surveillance state ("to keep us all in check"); Sherwood's lead guitar often sounds like that of David Gilmour, and there are even some Pink Floyd-ish spoken word samples in some songs.

The change in direction here does not involve any dip in quality. The compositions, the musicianship and the production are still top notch, and from a production point of view Billy may even outdo himself here. The sound of this album is absolutely superb! My favourite track is the opener The Military Industrial Complex which is one of the more direct songs on the album, but the whole album is great. Whether you will prefer this album over others or not is, I suspect, very much a matter of taste and it took me somewhat longer to get into this album. But it continued to grow on me over many listens and it proved to be yet another excellent album from Sherwood.

Highly recommended!