COLLECTION

This brand new compilation album documents Billy Sherwood's impressive and unfairly neglected solo career by presenting one track from each of his seven solo albums to date. To round off the disc, we are also treated to two previously unreleased tracks.

Collection opens with Drone Deciphers taken from 2012's The Art Of Survival. This excellent track is a good choice to represent that great album but I find it a somewhat odd choice as an opener of this compilation as it is a song of a subdued nature. Next up is the 11 minute plus Seeing Through The Walls from the 2008 album At The Speed Of Life. Again, this is a very good song, but also somewhat downbeat. The first up-tempo track on Collection is Call, taken from what I think is Sherwood's masterpiece: his 1999 solo debut The Big Peace. Call is again a very good track, but not the best or most essential track from that outstanding album.

From the oldest to the most recent: next comes On Impact from Billy's latest solo album to date, 2014's Divided By One. This is the kind of track that perhaps would have been a more fitting opening track (as it was on Divided By One). Billy second solo effort, 2003's No Comment, is represented here by Dying Breed. From 2010's Oneirology comes The Recurring Dream. This is another strong track, though I would have chosen the title track instead. Finally, What Was The Question? taken from the excellent 2011 album of the same name concludes the backward-looking part of Collection on a high note.

The two previously unreleased tracks include a cover of a song by Sting called I Hung My Head. The other is a new Sherwood original called Dark To Light. While both of these new recordings are enjoyable and welcome additions to the fan's collection, they are not up to the high standards set by the seven previously released album tracks. Still, it is the presence of these two previously unreleased tracks that makes Collection a worthwhile purchase for fans like me who already have all of Billy's regular solo albums.

Sherwood's first seven solo albums range from outstanding to very good and I highly recommend checking out Sherwood's solo discography. But this compilation album is probably not the best place to start your investigation into Billy Sherwood. As far as compilation albums go, Collection is a good one, but my advice is to go straight to the regular albums from which these songs were taken.