Album: Don't Look Down
Artist: Arc of Life
2022 Frontiers Records
CD: FR CD 1275
Billy Sherwood: vocals, bass
Jon Davison: vocals
Jimmy Haun: guitars, vocals
Jay Schellen: drums
Dave Kerzner: keys, vocals (credited, but didn't actually
contribute any vocals)
Produced, recorded & mixed by Sherwood
Recorded & mixed at CIRCA: HQ
Mastered by Maor Appelbaum
Tracks:
1. "Real Time World" [Sherwood/Davison] (9:02)
2. "Don't Look Down" [Sherwood] (6:20)
3. "All Things Considered" [Sherwood/Davison] (5:15)
4. "Colors Come Alive" [Sherwood] (7:53)
5. "Let Live" [Haun/Sherwood] (6:24)
6. "Arc of Life" [Sherwood/Davison] (17:42)
7. "Don't Look Down (acoustic version)", Japanese bonus track
Notes (**): The album was released 18 Nov. (3) was released
digitally before the album, with a video, followed later by (5).
The first Arc of Life album was
released in Feb 2021 and was based on a set of material Sherwood and
Davison had written while on tour with Yes. In the Feb 2021
interview, asked if there was additional material that didn't make
the first album, Davison replied, "We have another 3 or 4 songs that
were developed in tandem with the rest of the material. They'll be
appearing on the next AOL album. One of these is a 25 minute epic."
On 7 Mar 2022, Sherwood posted a picture of him and Haun to
Facebook, saying, "Working on the next "Arc Of Life" CD". In an interview
with the Yesshift podcast, uploaded 19 May 2022, Sherwood said
we've actually made a new record and I
literally just finished it and had it mastered by Maor Appelbaum
just about [...] three weeks ago now. So, now I'm just working
on cover art and getting all the sort of stuff together with
Frontiers Records to get it ready to come out. When they
put it out, I don't know
He continued: "The first record [...] admittedly is a little bit
more straight ahead in places and a little more, you know, not that
it's a bad word, but kind of commercial. […] the record starts that
way and then it evolves into a sort of more progressive feeling
thing by the end. And this is almost like a relay race now where we
took that baton and now we've just gone farther, faster with it, and
so it's much more progressive on this one. The last track is
17 minutes long. It's actually called "Arc of Life The Last Track"."
Dan Shinder, interviewing, asks how that name came about. Sherwood
replied, "the first track that Jon and I wrote for this, when we
were just writing for fun, y'know, we kept writing this song, and
kept writing and writing, and eventually it was like 17 minutes
long. So when, when it came time to sort of put together the first
record, I played music for Frontiers and that was one of those songs
and they kind of were, like. 'Well, this is really cool, but we kind
of were looking for more of a straight ahead kind of record here for
the debut.' So that song just kind of went on ice for a minute, but
has since now resurfaced and been fleshed out and developed and just
sounds killer. It's the right evolution for the band at the right
time".
In Sep 2022, Kerzner said on
ProgressiveEars.com: "The new album is a bit proggier than the
first one. It is still primarily Billy writing and producing for
this one. We wanted to get together and write as a band but Covid
got in the way. Third album that's the plan." He then added, "There
were more songs Billy and Jon had written than were on the first Arc
of Life album. Some songs they write end up with Yes, of course, but
some they wrote together while on tour ended up on the second Arc
album." And further:
the two people singing on both albums
are only Jon Davison and Billy Sherwood. Although, for the first
time Billy played in my solo band [...] after that experience he
said he wanted me to also sing on the third Arc of Life album
where we'll all write together as a band. That was actually the
initial plan for the second Arc album, but, thanks to Covid we
weren't able to all get together so easily in the last 2 years.
Fortunately, Billy and Jon had written a lot of material while
on tour with Yes and it was enough for two albums. This is also
probably why they have a cohesive connection to each other
stylistically besides the fact that it is a band led by, mixed
by and produced by Billy. [...] this [the second album] has
longer proggier tunes than the previous Arc of Life album
[...] With Arc of Life, so far I've really had the least amount
of creative input of any band or project I've been in. It was a
band I was added to because we're all friends and they needed a
keyboard player. I can't wait to play live with these guys
because we have some interesting fun surprises for the live
show. I look forward to a time when I can write with them as
well!
In Nov 2022, he said on ProgressiveEars.com, "I don't sing one word
on it." Asked if had more writing/arranging input on the second
album than the first, Kerzner replied on Facebook (Sep 2022): "No
not on this one either. We wanted to all get together as a band and
write but Covid messed that up. Next album we plan to all write and
sing as well." He had talked about the first album on
ProgressiveEars.com in late 2020: "It sounds like the style of
the songwriters as most albums do. [...] If I was co-writing with
them it would probably go further away from their sound just by
nature of blending styles and influences but... hopefully that'll
happen down the road." And, later
the same month, "I'm a late addition to the band and came in
after the songs were already written and mostly recorded. [...] I
hope my contributions will be part of the equation in the future.
That was the idea of me joining... that we'd tour and co-write the
next album together. Of course, a pandemic can throw everything up
in the air so who knows what will happen when?" In a Nov
2022 post to Facebook, Kerzner said, "The main songwriter,
producer and band leader of Arc of Life is Billy Sherwood."
The end result is an album that sounds a lot like plenty of previous
albums by Billy Sherwood/CIRCA:/Prog Collective. (HP, 18 Nov 22;
updated 22 Nov 22)
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