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KILROY WAS HERE

Styx

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Styx Kilroy Was Here album cover
2.26 | 193 ratings | 24 reviews | 4% 5 stars

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Studio Album, released in 1983

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Mr. Roboto (5:28)
2. Cold War (4:27)
3. Don't Let It End (4:56)
4. High Time (4:33)
5. Heavy Metal Poisoning (4:57)
6. Just Get Through This Night (6:06)
7. Double Life (3:46)
8. Haven't We Been Here Before? (4:06)
9. Don't Let It End (reprise) (2:22)

Total Time 40:41

Line-up / Musicians

- James Young / guitars, vocals (5,7)
- Tommy Shaw / guitars, synth, shamisen, vocals (2,6,8)
- Dennis DeYoung / keyboards, vocals (1,3,4,9)
- Chuck Panozzo / bass, bass pedals, vocals
- John Panozzo / drums & percussion, vocals

With:
- Steve Eisen / saxophone solos
- Dan Barber / trumpet
- Mark Ohlsen / trumpet
- Michael Mossman / trumpet
- Mike Halpin / trombone

Releases information

Artwork: Chuck Beeson with Jane O'Neal (photo)

LP A&M Records ‎- SP-3734 (1983, US)

CD A&M Records ‎- CD-3734 (1990, US)
SACD Audio Fidelity ‎- AFZ 174 (2014, US) Remastered by Kevin Gray

Thanks to ProgLucky for the addition
and to Quinino for the last updates
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STYX Kilroy Was Here ratings distribution


2.26
(193 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of rock music(4%)
4%
Excellent addition to any rock music collection(14%)
14%
Good, but non-essential (26%)
26%
Collectors/fans only (40%)
40%
Poor. Only for completionists (17%)
17%

STYX Kilroy Was Here reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Peter
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
1 stars Some earlier Styx was pretty good for 70s American progressive rock (almost an oxymoron at the time): songs like "Lady," "Suite Madame Blue" and "Come Sail Away" were decent radio-friendly efforts to follow the trail that the classic British prog bands had blazed. For my tastes, however, I always found that just as Coors Lite is beer for those who don't really like (or know) beer, so is Styx prog for those who don't really like prog. ("Prog-Lite," if you will.)

KILROY WAS HERE, and its ubiquitous single "Mr. Roboto" always brought on fits of gagging and retching for me back in the year of its release. This album is an aural abomination that serves as a textbook example of the worst sort of crimes against music that resulted when erstwhile semi-respectable prog bands collided with "new wave" and diminishing sales. I suppose the band had to eat, but couldn't they have just become used-car salesmen? (Anyway, the Simpsons version was vastly superior....) STYNX! See you at MacDonald's. I'll have the Plastic Burger.

Review by Sean Trane
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk
1 stars Any comments Mr Robotto? OR should I say Mr. Lobotto? If on Paradise, the group followed De Young grandiose delire , they were not really willing to do this real stinker (stynxer?) and there was bittter fighting after this. I think the group lost a lot of respect after the release of this major blunder.
Review by Gatot
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars This is actually not a bad album at all. It was just being released at the wrong time - i.e. the time when many prog heads turned into pop and the music industry was dominated by punk and new wave. I used to spin the cassette of this album for a break only after listening to some prog rock albums. "Mr. Roboto" is a nice opening with some industrial music style. "Cold War" is not actually good track but when I saw the band played it live, I started to like this song. "Don't Let It End" is a nice ballad with good melody. Agin, this is an example of track that was initially not attractive but when I enjoyed the live version, it became a good one. Circumstances do matter. Another good track which was featured beautifully during live show is "Heavy Metal Poisoning" - it's a thought provoking title, I believe.

Styx to me has always produced nice hard rock tunes and excellent ballads which sometimes too poppy like "Babe" or "Show Me The Way". This album represents a combination of hard rock and ballads. I also like the cover art. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Review by Easy Livin
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
2 stars Musical graffiti

First the good news. After tinkering with the idea on "The grand illusion" and "Paradise Theater", Styx finally went the whole way and recorded a full blown concept album. That's pretty much it for the good news, the rest is not so good!

The story here came from Dennis De Young, "Kilroy was here" also becoming a film! It tells the tale of a time in the future where Rock'n'roll music is decreed to be evil, and banned by the authorities. Kilroy is a big rock star who is (wrongly) found guilty of murder and confined to a prison ship. While he is in prison, Japanese Robots become the "caretakers of society", upholding the moral standards. Needless to say, our hero escapes and sets about putting things right. Interestingly, we do not actually learn if he has any success as the story ends at that point. In a nice twist, the "Paradise Theater" in Chicago becomes the focal point of the action.

It seems though that so much time was spent on the concept, that the music was relegated to a sorry second place. The opening track "Mr Roboto" is an eighties electronic piece of fluff, with jaunty synths and a tuneless melody. Unfortunately, it sets the tone for the album, things descending even further on the likes of "High time".

Dennis De Young comes up with a passable ballad in "Don't let it end" but the song benefits from the mediocrity which surrounds it. It really is difficult to find any redeeming features here. The album is light years from the band's finest works such as "The grand illusion". Even the changing mood of the period in which it was recorded, when bands such as Yes and Genesis were moving way from true prog, cannot excuse this total misfire.

The critical backlash which greeted "Kilroy" together with growing internal turmoil led to the band imploding and the glory days were over. The band has since reconvened in various forms, but this is a sorry end for the classic line up.

Review by Tom Ozric
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Of all the cheezy LP's I could possibly own, this is the only one I find cheezy !!! Cheezy for sure, but some of it is quite endearing to me. 'Kilroy Was Here' was the grand concept album Styx decided to finish up their 'Super- star' career with. Without waffling on about the story, some of the songs on this album have a very slight Proggy touch to them, very slight. I've always enjoyed the smash-hit 'Mr Roboto', with its dynamic Keyboard work and catchy riffs. 'Don't Let It End' is one of the superior 'power-ballads' that actually works - kind of a nod towards their most popular tune 'Babe', but much, much better. 'Heavy Metal Poisoning' is a cool, hard- rock oriented tune composed and sung by the hyper-active Guitarist James Young. Tommy Shaw's ' mini- epic' 'Just Get Through This Night' (6.01) features a typically Progressive intro with a brooding atmosphere, but gives way to a tasteful, even if a bit M.O.R., main section. Still, it's not a bad track. Other tracks on the album are pure Pop-music, the absolute low-point being 'High Time', especially with its rather 'dumb' horn section. The song 'Cold War' is one of the most listenable slices of cheeze I've heard. Funny how I've hung on to this album, along with their first 4 records. 2 stars, as this is strictly for the die-hard, or for those that enjoy 80's synth-pop (or more obscurely, like me, who are neither....)
Review by Ivan_Melgar_M
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
2 stars Please let it end

As a fan of STYX have been delaying my review about "Kilroy Was Here", in my opinion the worst album in their career and the one that caused the disband of the group due to the fact that Dennis DeYoung was starting to get obsessed with theatrics, which later lead him to a career in Broadway.

But this is not a problem "per se", the fact is that in order to support a dubious concept, the music suffered and this collection of weak tracks was crowned by a 30 minutes video in which DeYoung as Kilroy, saves Rock & Roll from the terrible (laughable to be sincere) Dr. Righteous, leader of the Majority for Musical Morality, one of the most ridiculous films I have ever seen.

The opener is simply cheesy from start to end Mr. Roboto with almost comical lyrics, not even the excellent chorus can save the song, even John Panozzo's drums sound mechanical and lack of inspiration, maybe good for a musical but this is not real Rock & Roll by one of the most iconic USA bands.

Despite having Tommy Shaw as lead singer, "Cold War" is an anodyne song without head or feet, they try to Rock, but the addition of some weak rhythmic sections make his poor song even worst than it was at the start.

"Don't Let it End" is a simple but effective ballad with the signature of Dennis DeYoung, at least here they sound like STYX with excellent choirs and some interesting changes, a pretty song somehow similar to "Babe" but better.

At the start of "High Times" we can realize this is not a Rock album, but a musical for Broadway even the structure is prepared for some long legged girls to dance in the background, this is as weak as STYX can get...At least until now.

At least "Heavy Metal Poisoning" sounds like Rock, and JY'S voice helps, but the less than mediocre lyrics simply make me sick. One thing that this song has is good drumming by John Panozzo.

I can't define "Just Get Through This Night", apparently they try to experiment a bit, but when the vocals hit us, the effect is gone, some kind of soft adult contemporary ballad, boring to the extreme.

Not a the best song but "Double Life" is a STYX song with good chorus, interesting guitar and decent keyboards, I almost applauded when this track was playing,but the album doesn't end here and it's the turn for "Haven't We Been Here Before", a good catchy ballad by Tommy Shaw who proves that POP can be interesting, nothing spectacular but over the average.

The album ends with the reprise of "Don't Let it End" a good tribute to the founders of Rock, another decent song.

"Kilroy Was Here" marked the end of an era, STYX would never been able to sound as in the early days, at least not with Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw together, except for "Caught in the Ac which was recorded during the Kilroy tour and the melancholic "Return to the Paradise".

After the tour each member took his own path for a long time, John Panozzo died, Chuck got sick and we have today a different band trying to rise from the ashes with Tommy Shaw and James Young as leaders.

If it wasn't for Mr Roboto, Cold War" and "High Times", I would had rated "Kilroy Was Here" with 3 stars, but this songs are so bad that don't allow me to go above 2 stars.

Review by Sinusoid
PROG REVIEWER
1 stars Predominantly panned by reviewers here, yet commercially successful, KILROY WAS HERE is the unlikely merger of a concept album (more theatrical rock album) and 80's synth pop that was all the rage at the time. The concept is made to be even more tantalising by making it a morality-driven tyranny dead set on destroying rock and roll music (Was the PMRC formed at this time?). While it became hot in the 80's, the reason why KWH is so derided now is because it's so attached to the 80's sound, and other than two big hits, the album is painfully forgetable.

Styx have had many AOR tendencies in the past, but their songwriting helped them pull out a good song or two per album with the rest being decent (but still forgetable). Here, we wallow in a mire of dreck 80's tunes that are either yawners or just plain cringeworthy. The doo-wop vocalising in ''High Time'' is simply insulting to the fan that loves ''Suite Madam Blue'' and ''The Grand Illusion''. The second side is entirely disposable with nothing more than uninteresting ballads and awfully anonymous AOR things.

It's with reluctance that I say ''Mr. Roboto'' and ''Don't Let It End'' (the two massive hits) are close enough to highlights on the album. Most readers here know the former (it's actually not too bad until DeYoung ruins it at the end by singing in a high register), and the latter is simply a power ballad like only the 80's could provide. I will admit to calling ''Don't Let It End'' a guilty pleasure. It certainly seems that KWH as a whole could be filed under ''guilty pleasure'', but unless the concept tickles a fancy, I doubt anyone interested in prog rock would find the relatively simplistic song structures and tacky synth sounds enjoyable.

Review by Finnforest
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
2 stars Yikes

'I remember the first time I heard 'Mr. Roboto'...at some point a band's gonna put out a record that makes you think...'Well, that's it.' I kind of felt that way about Kilroy." -Todd Sucherman, latter day Styx drummer

During much of the 'Cornerstone' and 'Paradise Theater' era, guitarists Tommy Shaw and James Young were needlessly freaking out as Dennis DeYoung continued to deliver fine concepts and songs. Both albums are great despite the many critical naysayers. Shaw in particular began to withdraw as the quality of his contribution declined generally, and his interest in cocaine increased, none of which he denies. However, by the time their '82 tour ended and DeYoung hatched his new idea for yet another concept album, I flip to the Shaw/Young camp with my sympathies. This time Dennis not only created something so cold and restrictive to the strengths of his bandmates, but for the first time, he didn't have the goods to back himself up. The material this time was far from compelling or emotionally satisfying.

'I just couldn't come up with songs about robots' -Tommy Shaw

The music of Kilroy is the weakest the band had issued in many years. Ironically, despite their outspoken condemnation of the album it is Shaw and Young who deliver the three good songs. DeYoung strikes out completely in that regard. The album's high point is the three song stretch of 'Heavy Metal Poisoning/Just Get Through This Night/Double Life.' Heavy Metal and Double Life were written by Young and both are more inventive than his usual slash and burn riff-rockers, featuring his trademark unique vocal prowess. 'Just Get Through This Night' feels like the flip side of his 'Love in the Midnight' bad boy persona, more thoughtful, with a sensitive vocal that imparts the sense of loneliness and restlessness he feels. Other tracks are much less successful, like Shaw's aimless 'Cold War' and DeYoung's 'High Time.' Even DeYoung's hit single 'Don't Let It End' fails, its sappy lyrics and delivery much more deserving of the wrath that was laid at the feet of the far superior 'Babe' years earlier.

The video that accompanied the album was an even bigger disaster, absolutely one-star nonsense whose poor acting and dreadful execution would be bested by high school short film projects. When presented at huge Texas stadiums filled with rowdy fans there to see Nugent and others, Shaw thought he would be killed recreating this dialogue. He wasn't far off. But even beyond the songs themselves, the Kilroy project simply fails to give the listener the same sense of sincere emotion and energy they expected. Styx was a band of upbeat rocking and confidence which came through in their music. It wasn't necessary for them to attempt this clumsy, dark concept album. Others had covered such terrain far more convincingly.

There was potential here but it required much more thought and teamwork to pull it off, and the band's relationships at this point made such collaboration impossible. Fans will certainly want to hear this and some will like it. But for me it is a sadly missed opportunity and a project that took down a very good band. The tour for Kilroy would be a disaster and Tommy Shaw quit the band soon thereafter. Later comebacks and today's hollow imposter band would never recapture the magic last witnessed with Paradise Theater. Game over in the land of the Stygians.

Review by Matti
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars STYX is a U.S. AOR band who enjoyed massive popularity but is usually maligned by progheads. They have never been among my favourites but I have a carefully chosen self-burnt CD to listen to once in every third year at maximum. Before that I have had a couple of used vinyls I was disappointed with (Crystal Ball and Paradise Theater). But before all that, in my early teens, I knew this album (my brother's vinyl) and had some interest towards it. I still remember fondly the moody nocturnal song 'Just Get Through This Night'.

The worst songs I must have happily forgot completely. Other songs I remember, namely 'Mr Roboto', 'Don't Let It End' and 'Haven't We Been Here Before', are more or less annoying (two of them also syrupy!), so I don't wonder why this album has such a low rate even in the generally low STYX scale. A pity, because the concept is quite interesting. Reminding a bit of RUSH's '2112' inspired by an Ayn Rand novel, it tells of a future totalitarian society where rock music is strictly banned, and of a young man who fights against the system - or something like that. Robots and robot masks were involved in the adventurous plot.

Well, most of the album is probably awful, but I believe this is not really STYX at their very worst. Maybe progheads hate to see a concept album (with a story that would be very much at home in prog) which is NOT prog. As a product of U.S. rock from 1983 this surely doesn't stand out as being terrible. A good effort at least. Two stars for that, and for one great track.

Review by Chicapah
PROG REVIEWER
1 stars I have yet to award any of Styx's albums a four-star rating or better and, since I've reached the end of what most consider their golden era, I doubt at this point I ever will. I announce that so you'll know how I feel about this band's art. Kinda "meh." I deem both 1977's "The Grand Illusion" and 1981's "Paradise Theatre" to be their high water mark records but the others suffer from an array of shortcomings that cause them to be mediocre fare at best. I recently got to their notorious "Kilroy Was Here," the disc that effectively unleashed the landslide that brought their gravy train to a screeching halt. By 1983 the group could only be considered prog-related in the sense that they were frequently pompous and over-the-top in the way they presented their craft but musically speaking they'd turned into a pop/rock hybrid that did everything possible to be entertaining but nothing to aurally challenge their audience. Yet Styx found out, like many other successful 70s acts, that the youthful denizens of the new decade viewed them as out-of-touch dinosaurs. This predicament caused most of those groups to try things they thought would make them appear hip, trendy and relevant when all those efforts only made them look silly. Of all those guilty of this crime Styx may be the worst of offenders due to this, their dubious "Kilroy Was Here" album. I have a sneaky suspicion that keyboardist and self-appointed band leader Dennis DeYoung bears much of the responsibility for this record. It seems logical that the runaway success of "Paradise Theatre" and the sold-out tours that supported it went straight to his head and planted wicked seeds of grandeur within its confines. I picture him telling the other members that they were now ready to present a game-changing rock opera to the world that would rival the Who's masterpiece, "Tommy," and they unwisely acquiesced. It proved to be their Waterloo.

The album begins with DeYoung's infamous "Mr. Roboto." A mysterious intro leads you into this very New Wave-ish number that sounds like an intentional blending of The Cars and Devo. There's absolutely nothing prog about this song by any stretch of the imagination and the premise it lays out for the plot (tyrannical government outlaws evil rock & roll) is ridiculously unoriginal and wearying from the get-go. I could ramble on for paragraphs about the public's abysmal lack of taste in the 80s but I'll let the fact that this tune rose to #3 on the singles chart speak for itself. Payola surely HAD to be involved. Guitarist Tommy Shaw's "Cold War" is next and it epitomizes the problem with rock music in general at that juncture in time in that it had been castrated and gutted of anything resembling raw power and replaced with a trite rhythm section and tinny synthesizers. Dennis' "Don't Let It All End" follows and it's one of his signature overwrought ballads that I find tiring and tedious. It also shines a glaring light on the absence of depth in their overall ambience despite the studio engineers receiving accolades for their work. I don't get it. I will give a nod to Tommy and lead guitarist James Young for turning in some spirited solos, thereby providing the only bright spots so far. For DeYoung's "High Time" I guess the track's "mechanical" feel was manufactured on purpose for the number but it doesn't do a thing to endear me to the music it fosters. One of the major pitfalls in creating a concept album is that often, in order to further the storyline, the songs come off contrived and presumptuous and I offer this track as solid evidence. The guitar lead is good but it never had a chance of saving this turkey.

James penned "Heavy Metal Poisoning" intending to sarcastically answer the right-wing ignoramuses who stupidly claimed that rock & roll was ruining the youth of America but to deem it as being a specimen of metal is an insult to that genre because it's more of a novelty tune than a serious composition. It does have a certain Alice Cooper meets The Tubes vibe to it that isn't degrading in itself (I have nothing against either entity) but it's as far away from progressive rock as polka music is from disco. Shaw's "Just Get Through This Night" is the first worthwhile cut to be encountered on this record, beginning with its classy intro. While the body of the song isn't anything to write to the folks back home about it's still an above-average tune and Tommy sings it with conviction and a fair amount of passion. I appreciate the group's rare display of restraint during the ending, as well. DeYoung's "Double Life" is a plodding rocker not helped at all by his overly-dramatic, hammy lead vocal. I figure it was supposed to be ominous but it's about as scary as a rubber spider and the whole track falls flat on its face. Shaw's "Haven't We Been Here Before" opens with a curious lullaby atmosphere that's different but soon enough it does the expected and morphs into one of their patronizing, hold-up-your-Bic "rawk" anthems, a ploy that no self-respecting progger would ever endorse or get caught up in. Dennis' "Don't Let It End (Reprise)" was obviously planned to be the climactic finale that would bedazzle the listener but it's so inanely predictable and ordinary that it fatally suffocates under its own dead, flabby weight. In deference to the tune's title, I was relieved that there wasn't any more of "Kilroy Was Here" to endure.

In essence I have no alternative but to side with the majority that've classified this album as being a bonafide stinker. I tried to lend an unbiased ear to its contents but came away in a state of total agreement with that odorous assessment. Its true claim to fame is that only a handful of records have been able to derail a band's career as effectively as "Kilroy Was Here," sending Styx falling from grace as spectacularly as Lucifer tumbling from heaven down into Hades. They were never the same. Amazingly, the record rose to #3 on the Billboard LP charts but it faded fast and settled into so-bad-it's-kitschy cult purgatory. In '84 DeYoung and Shaw each released solo albums and the group, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist as a musical force to be reckoned with in the biz. (There was a lone reunion album in '99 that featured Dennis and Tommy and there are a few Shaw-dominated releases that came after that flop but none garnered an iota of attention.) Once one of the USA's most popular rock bands to ever stroll a stage, they now tour annually like some sort of blast-from-the-past sideshow attraction. While it's hard to knock them for making a buck or two it's still a bit sad to witness. I'll always think of Styx as a group of talented musicians that could've been so much more if they'd only dared to embrace their progness and taken it to the limit. We'll never know. 1.4 stars.

Review by Rune2000
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
2 stars After two weaker Styx albums, in the shape of Cornerstone and Paradise Theater, it was obvious that the band was losing their momentum. Even though they still delivered hit songs, one somehow got the feeling that the chemistry between the members was lost and Kilroy Was Here is a perfect example of just that.

The album kicks off with a short introduction to the Don't Let It End melody before we dive into the album's biggest hit Mr. Roboto. Almost everyone should have heard this song at one point or another so there's really no point to go into details, let's just say that I happen to enjoy it a bit more than I probably should. I think that the main reason for this is Dennis DeYoung's passionate vocal delivery and that's also the case with Don't Let It End and the slightly less memorable High Time. It would have really been interesting to hear more songs from DeYoung featured on this album since his material is what carries this record, thus also explaining why only his material actually managed to make an impact on the charts.

Tommy Shaw does manage to score two nice ballads with Just Get Through This Night and Haven't We Been Here Before? while Cold War is probably one of my least favorite tracks of his. I have no idea how James Young managed to get two songs of his on this album because they are really not all that impressive. Double Life might be quite harmless and one can easily forget that it's even on this album but Heavy Metal Poisoning is where I draw the line! This is a completely disastrous track and one of the few instances that I always make sure to skip the song while listening to Kilroy Was Here.

Did I mention that this is a concept album with a short film and thematic music videos been produced to support the album? Well, I guess that it's for the better! This is as pretentious as Styx would ever get with their conceptual releases so my recommendation is to stick with the individual compositions for their songwriting and forget that there is any theme between them.

This album clearly shows the split within Styx and even though the final product is not the worst record they've released, it's only because this quintet were the professionals that they were. I can only recommend Kilroy Was Here to fans of Styx who have played all previous albums to death and feel that they need to hear a bit new material from the band.

**** star songs: Mr. Roboto (5:28) Don't Let It End (4:56) Just Get Through This Night (6:06) Haven't We Been Here Before? (4:06) Don't Let It End (Reprise) (2:22)

*** star songs: Cold War (4:27) High Time (4:33) Double Life (3:46)

* star songs: Heavy Metal Poisoning (4:57)

Review by Warthur
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars Mr. Roboto might have been the hit single, but the rest of this concept album resembles the style that Styx used on Paradise Theatre with a somewhat bigger synthpop influence. They don't go full synthpop, mind - just like they didn't really go full prog on The Grand Illusion - which makes Roboto a bit uncharacteristic of the rest of the album, which is a shame because it's an undeniably catchy song. (Though it's rather unfortunate that the droids on the album cover or in the music video look like racist caricatures.)

The really big shift here is that whilst Paradise Theatre's concept was fairly restrained and sober - a state-of-the-nation look at America at the end of the 1970s through the allegorical lens of the rise and fall of a legendary concert venue - Kilroy's story is absolutely goofy. "Rock opera about a dystopia where music is banned" is very, very well-worn territory by this point; Rush got the idea out of their system on one side of 2112, Zappa stretched the concept to 3 LPs in the Joe's Garage series (but wasn't really focusing on the story that much, if at all), Dream Theater would base The Astonishing around it and that Queen jukebox musical uses the concept too.

Styx may well have been beating Queen and Dream Theater to the punch here, but Rush and Zappa had told this story before and done it better, and had done it not that long before Styx did it. Sure, the subject matter probably felt more immediate to Styx due to Christian groups objecting to Snowblind from Paradise Theatre, but even so it feels like they don't really have much to say about this concept which hadn't been said better by others, and DeYoung's quasi- Messianic posing as Kilroy is unquestionably cheesy.

If you like Styx's brand of cheesiness, that's not necessarily a problem, especially if the idea of a substantially more synth-focused take on Paradise Theatre appeals to you. If you fell in love with the sound of The Grand Illusion or Pieces of Eight, I can see why this album might bug you. I like it, but equally it clearly marks the point where the band's sound has strayed so far from their prog-adjacent hard rock roots that it's no surprise that they needed to spend the rest of the 1980s taking a break from being Styx after this.

Latest members reviews

3 stars I always thought everyone was too hard on Styx, but the fact is they sound too much like prog for a radio-rock fan, and their songs rarely inspire the average prog fan. I like to say Styx has something for everybody to dislike, and that is truest for this album, but I think they're great and ... (read more)

Report this review (#1716185) | Posted by Corcoranw687 | Sunday, April 30, 2017 | Review Permanlink

1 stars Here it is, the nadir of Styx (or is it Cornerstone? Paradise Theatre?). Personally, I dislike them all. I think I would put this a step above Paradise Theater but just by a nose. The inspiration here is minimal. The "concept" tracks such as "Mr Roboto" are painful and the rest of the album ju ... (read more)

Report this review (#277897) | Posted by mohaveman | Wednesday, April 14, 2010 | Review Permanlink

1 stars The worst off-Broadway play I never saw. Kilrow Was Here is the next step in "progressive rock" from everyone's favorite, Styx. I could toss around some words, like "cheesy" or "god damn terrible" but these are too subjective. Beginning with the "mega" hit, Mr. Roboto, we get perhaps the best ... (read more)

Report this review (#219575) | Posted by Alitare | Tuesday, June 2, 2009 | Review Permanlink

1 stars When I listened to this one so I could get familiar with it and review it, I made sure to use headphones the entire time. Not because listening to this through headphones produces interesting effects, but because I didn't want anyone to catch me listening to this. If that doesn't suffice, feel fr ... (read more)

Report this review (#189560) | Posted by MrEdifus | Sunday, November 16, 2008 | Review Permanlink

3 stars Ok, this wasn't Styx's finest record, "Kilroy was here" was a far cry besides "Crystal Ball" and "Equinox", but REMEMBER the music had changed by 1983, a hard time for prog music, just as much as 1992 when heavy metal was wiped away by the so-called alternative rock, so don't pretend to have a ... (read more)

Report this review (#113072) | Posted by Prosciutto | Wednesday, February 21, 2007 | Review Permanlink

1 stars Well, this is my 4th review here on progarchives, and since I have already given three "5 star ratings" I decided I needed to now review a really poor album. Of course, it is natural to initially rate the albums one really likes, but lest anyone think I am an easy reviewer, i decided to pick a ... (read more)

Report this review (#84540) | Posted by Thyme Traveler | Saturday, July 22, 2006 | Review Permanlink

4 stars I quite enjoyed Kilroy Was Here (title originally used in a song by The Move). "Mr. Roboto" was THE essential song to listen to after "Down Under" by Men At Work had dried up its airplay. There is a haunting keyboard backdrop underlying the music that most people don't recognize right away, that ... (read more)

Report this review (#71479) | Posted by | Thursday, March 9, 2006 | Review Permanlink

3 stars An avarage album, with some good songs like "Just Get Through This Night", which is my favourite track on the album. But somehow, Styx lost it's sharp edge, and was heading for a "main stream" direction. The influence of James and Tommy grew less, and that was noticable on the quality of the s ... (read more)

Report this review (#49957) | Posted by | Tuesday, October 4, 2005 | Review Permanlink

2 stars You need to understand, I became a huge Styx fan in the mid 70's (about 1976), so I had been along for the ride for awhile at this point. I was living in Spain at the time of it's release, and watching the ups and downs of this band, I about quit on them after Kilroy. The album has it's moment ... (read more)

Report this review (#38009) | Posted by | Wednesday, June 29, 2005 | Review Permanlink

4 stars I think it is a great album, it is Styx's most progressive album. It's quite original. I like the concept and lyrics, a kind of fun-loving tackle at a dark subject, mind-control and oppression. Not a bad song, but my favourite is Double life and I also love High Time. ... (read more)

Report this review (#17413) | Posted by Brendan | Sunday, April 10, 2005 | Review Permanlink

4 stars Though the concept behind "Kilroy" is a little thin, the band manages to pull it off with a sort of magic that only Styx could produce. While many want to forget this album or push it aside, it is a true classic...and the final stuido album that the band would produce with this lineup intact. ... (read more)

Report this review (#17407) | Posted by | Friday, December 26, 2003 | Review Permanlink

4 stars This is Styx meets the 80's, it's a concept album about a rock-singer in a R'n'R-banned future world who escapes from prison after his last riotous concert. He disguises himself as Mr. Roboto to move around the citiy and meet the R'n'R resistance. So it is basically a classical concept album (co ... (read more)

Report this review (#17406) | Posted by | Tuesday, December 23, 2003 | Review Permanlink

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