CORNERSTONE

Styx

Prog Related

2.75 | 223 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

aglasshouse

"Cornerstone" is the ninth studio album by the american progressive/hard rock band, STYX.

After their second huge hit-producing album "Pieces of Eight", STYX released the followup album, "Cornerstone", in 1979. It can immediately be assumed that the follow album to a triple-platinum certified record is usually not as up to scratch as the former. Many times, a band loses their cool after taking their success too lightly, and releases a complete piece of garbage. In the case of "Cornerstone", it's a mix.

Let's start off with the worst. The ballads. Dennis DeYoung made two of them on the album, one of which became the only US #1 single on the charts. 'First Time' is a power-ballad that was meant to become the second single on the album, but instead was replaced with 'Borrowed Time' as a single release. Sadly, the song got a meager #63 on the charts. 'Babe' is the #1 single hit ballad that I was talking about before. Unlike 'First Time', 'Babe' is just a lame, poppy ballad that sounds like some soul artist wrote and sang it and not STYX. Both ballads are unremarkable, and in my opinion, un-listenable.

Synth is a huge annoyance on this album. Songs like 'Why Me', 'First Time' and 'Lights', have over-whelming synthesizer constantly blasting you with every note. Not enjoyable by any means.

Asides from the bad tracks, there are songs on the album that are enjoyable, like 'Boat On A River', which uses a menacing acoustic sound with nice light lyrics to make for an awesome mix. The song is, in a way, a sort of gypsy campfire ballad, which is surprisingly good seeing as it's odds wouldn't look great in the eyes of any prog fan. There are driving tracks, like 'Eddie' and 'Borrowed Time', of which have a nice constant rocking tone.

I would say that this album is totally worth picking up.

Go give it a listen.

(Originally written for the Metal Music Archives on 10/5/14)

aglasshouse | 3/5 | 2014-10-5

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