WORLD TRADE

Some things don't change.

Twenty-two years after the last World Trade album, Billy Sherwood has revived the band with Bruce Gowdy and Guy Allison returning on guitars and keyboards respectively, and drummer Mark T. Williams (son of the noted composer John Willams), who played on their debut album, on drums.

Not surprisingly, they still sound like 1980s Yes.

The songs are short, with only one breaking the six minute mark, but hardly an epic.

What stands out here is Sherwood's bass playing. After many years of touring with Yes, and recently taking over for the legendary Chris Squire, he is learning some of the techniques that made Squire such an exceptional bassist. While not as outstanding as Squire, Sherwood's bass lines wander around the melodies and harmonies and rhythms in a similar manner.

The songwriting here is okay. The tunes are all listenable, and the band manages to throw in some progressive turns in nearly every track. Unfortunately, it all sounds like it was done before by Yes.

If you want a better example of what Sherwood can do outside of Yes, look for the 2016 album by Circa, "Valley Of The Windmill". It's a far better album.

Their moment was yet to come

World Trade evolved out of an earlier band called Lodgic that had released an album called Nomadic Sands in 1985 (which I have yet to hear). This self-titled debut of World Trade appeared in 1989 and featured a line-up of Billy Sherwood, Bruce Gowdy, Guy Allison, and Mark Williams. Other reviewers have compared this music to Yes' 90125 as well as to the band It Bites and I have to agree that these comparisons are spot on. This album is very much of its time.

With the exception of the brief instrumental that opens the album, the songs are all around four to five minutes in length and the style is rather standard, mildly progressive Pop Rock. The songs are relatively catchy and of reasonable quality, and this is by no means a bad album. However, there is nothing too special here either.

The band's next album Euphoria would be a vast improvement over this debut and point in the direction of Billy Sherwood's future career as a solo artist and beyond, but here there are only a few slight hints of what was to come later. Being a massive Yes fan with a keen interest in anything related to Yes, including Billy Sherwood's impressive solo career, checking this album out was of course inevitable for me. If you have similar interests then you will also want to hear this.

Welcome to the trade!

Released by the Magna Carta label in 1995, Euphoria is World Trade's second album and their latest to date. The band consisted of Guy Allison on keyboards, Bruce Gowdy on guitars, Jay Schellen on drums, and Billy Sherwood on lead vocals and bass. Euphoria is a modern progressive Rock album and it appeared at a time when Prog was experiencing a revival after the (more or less) barren 80's. This second album of the group is a significant improvement over the debut and an enjoyable album in its own right.

Sherwood does most of the lead vocals but a few passages seem to be sung by someone else (but I don't know whom). The songs on which Billy's vocals are most recognizable point in the direction of his future solo career, but World Trade's music is not quite up to the same standards as most of his excellent solo albums. With the exception of the closing number One By One By One/Wheels Of Life the best songs of Euphoria appear near the beginning of the album. The first three tracks as well as In The Wake Of The Storm are among the best.

The amazing Chris Squire appears as a guest on a couple of tracks here contributing some backing vocals and some bass. This was before Sherwood was asked to join Yes as a full member, but Billy and Chris had been personal friends for several years and Billy had already co-written a couple of songs for Yes in the early 90's as well as toured with them in support of the Talk album as an extra guitarist. The tracks on which Squire guests here foreshadow the Conspiracy project and reminds of the music that this duo (consisting of Sherwood and Squire) would record in the early 2000's. Say Goodbye is, for example, similar in style to Love Conquers All, a Sherwood/Squire composition that first appeared on the box set Yesyears and was later re-recorded for the first Conspiracy album.

Other than their two studio albums, World Trade has to date only recorded some tracks for tribute albums that were also released by Magna Carta Records. These include a version of Wondrous Stories on the Yes tribute album Tales From Yesterday, Keep It Dark on the Genesis tribute album Supper's Ready, and Any Colour You Like on The Moon Revisited, a tribute to Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. I'm saying this here as this tells something about the band's influences. These covers were all released in the same year as Euphoria and since then it has been quiet from World Trade. But at this time of writing (2015), 20 years after the release of Euphoria, Sherwood has recently announced that World Trade are currently working on their third studio album, which he said will sound like 80's Yes! I am looking forward to that!

In the meantime we will have to make due with Euphoria which is definitely a good album even if it not every song from it makes me euphoric.

World Trade is the side project of famous Billy Sherwood while he was still involved in Yes music for several years when the second album of World Trade saw the light in 1995 named Euphoria. Well, I like this album, is quite ok most of the time, very much similar in sound with Yes Big Generator or Union, is progressive rock for sure but has a good almost AOR vibe in places. The presence of Chris Squire as guest behind the bass helps the album to climb little higher among fans, even most of Yes fanatics does't even noticed this release, being maybe to popy or AOR to their likings. Of course there are some great moments like The wake of the storm or ending Wheels Of Life, maybe the best tune of the album. Not much to add, to me is fairly good release, Sherwood will disbanded World Trade in 2000 and formed Conspiracy with Chris Squire and Jay Schellen also drumer on this album. So, 3 solid stars, maybe 3.5 stars in places.

Slightly weaker than their first album, this one was recorded after Billy Sherwood's first appearance with Yes (on Union), but before his full membership with that band. There is still a strong resemblance to "Big Generator" era Yes, with a hint of It Bites, but the songwriting, for the most part has taken a downturn, heading toward the drivel that he help Yes record on "Hold Your Nose"... I mean "Open Your Eyes". Even the appearance of Chris Squire on two songs doesn't help.

There are some decent moments, but they are dragged down by the feeling that they could be average moments on one of the worst Yes albums. And the best song, Wheels Of Life, sounds too much like a disparate bunch of random ideas recorded and spliced together randomly into what is supposed to be a song.

Any hard core Yes fan knows who Billy Sherwood is. He first appeared with Yes as a producer on one track of the ill-received "Union" album, and became a full fledged band member for the dismal "Open Your Eyes" and the much better "The Ladder". But before Yes, he was in World Trade, a Yes clone. Not just a Yes clone, but a clone of the 1980's pop Yes.

This, World Trade's first album, has a very strong Yes influence. That is, if you consider "Big Generator" truly Yes. It doesn't come close to "90125" in progressiveness or inventiveness, but it does have some listenable moments. However, they lose points for Fight To Win, that is way to obviously a ripoff of "Owner Of A Lonely Heart.

Another comparison at many times is to It Bites. For some reason, they have almost as much of a resemblance to that band as they do to Yes.

Put on to this as one of Classic Rock magazine's 'top ten prog albums of the eighties', this had much to live up to. Sadly it fails. We end up with someone trying to sound like the 'Yes' of the same period, which isn't exactly saying alot. 'Big generator' must be one of Yes' least memorable albums, and this follows suit.

I personally prefer my Yes music to be a bit more 'moody' than this repetitively paced offering. 'Classic Rock' were right that the stand-out song is 'The revolution song', which is very catchy, but listen some more and 'Sense of freedom' stands out as a not to bad attempt to be moody, whilst the last song, 'Open the door' is worthy too.

Overall though, I found it a shallow ride.

Are you familiar with YES "Open Your Eyes" album? If so, this album by World Trade is very similar with Yes "Open Your Eyes" album which was released two years after this album by World Trade. What does it imply? You might have thought that Yes "Open Your Eyes" was heavily influenced by World Trade? Well, it can be two ways: Billy Sherwood (vocals, bass) had been a die hard fan of Yes and he joined Yes later and released "Open Your Eyes" album. Just before he joined Yes, he and his bandmates released this album with music style of Yes "Tervor Rabin Era". The vocal quality in this album is quite similar with Jon Anderson's. The music is much simpler and it flows naturally through out the album.

But of course one might conclude that World Trade influenced Yes because "Open Your Eyes" was similar musically with "Euphoria". Take example of opening track "One World Going Round" (5:25) which showcases similar style with "Open Your Eyes" album.

Overal, it's a good album.

This album was a project from Billy Sherwood, who was famous for his presence in Yes as bass player in their late period: "Open Your Eyes" and "The Ladder". The result was a decent album played by an ordinary band, oriented to play good music but lacking some creativity. Even though influences from Yes are more than evident; their music has its own features: even darker and more solid bass guitar lines, heavier riffs and an interesting atmosphere that makes the album very enjoyable. Billy Sherwood is an excellent vocalist; the band has good keyboard lines but definitely poor guitar arrangements. Sometimes there are wide passages and spaces that make the music a bit arid.

Anyway, a good and positive album, don't expect more than this. I do not mean it is a bad album, just plain neo progressive that grows under the shade of classical band: Yes.

This is a good, but not great, neo-prog album. About half the songs are excellent, in particular "Wasting Time," the other half are forgettable AOR. It's clear Billy Sherwood & Co. had been listening to Yes' Big Generator album a lot, and if you like Big Generator, you'll like this.