Yes bassist Billy Sherwood has announced that he’ll release his new solo album this summer.
It’s titled Citizen: In The Next Life and it’ll launch on July 12 via Frontiers Music srl.
It’ll be the second part in Sherwood’s Citizen series which follows ‘The Citizen’ as he travels through time and space to experience historical events through his own eyes.
To mark the news, Sherwood has released the first track from the record, The Partisan.
He explains: “The song is about Adolf Hitler and follows his rise to power and eventual fall. Sophia is about the first ever A.I. to be formally recognised and declared a citizen of a nation (Saudi Arabia). It explores the notion that perhaps this isn’t such a great idea and 'just because we can doesn’t mean we should.’
“Monet finds the citizen as the famous Impressionist painter and expresses the beauty within the paintings themselves, 'painting for all our eyes’, while We Shall Ride Again has the citizen as the famous lawman Wyatt Earp as he takes care of business, along with his brothers Virgil, Morgan and comrade Doc Holliday."
Sherwood adds: "By Design is a song where the soul of the main character is Romeo, expressing his love for his Juliet, while Mata Hari is about the infamous spy who used her seductive ways to get vital information to the governments she worked for.
“The double agent would eventually find herself in front of a firing squad after being found out."
While Sherwood created 2015’s Citizen with a number of guest musicians, he decided to craft the concept of Citizen: In The Next Life alone.
The album also includes a tribute to late Yes bassist Chris Squire, with Sherwood impersonating the Citizen character as Squire via Amazing Grace – a famous bass solo that he used to perform live.
Billy Sherwood: Citizen: In The Next Life
1. The Partisan
2. Sophia
3. Monet
4. Skywriter
5. We Shall Ride Again
6. Via Hawking
7. By Design
8. Sailing The Seas
9. Mata Hari
10. Hold Quite
