CIRCLING FROM ABOVE

I must confess it has been decades since I last heard a new Styx album, but I did really enjoy 'Brave New World', and here in 2025 the latest incarnation of the band are back with the 18th studio album of their career. They are now seven-strong, but as long as JY and Tommy Shaw are there then to my mind it is all good. The line-up is James "JY" Young (lead vocals, guitars), Tommy Shaw (lead vocals, guitars), Chuck Panozzo (bass, vocals), Todd Sucherman (drums, percussion), Lawrence Gowan (lead vocals, keyboards), Will Evankovich (acoustic and electric guitars, vocals) and Terry Gowan (bass, vocals) and if, like me, you have not heard this band for years then putting this on is like sitting in your favourite armchair, as it is like they have managed to push back time fifty years to when they were in their heyday.

Okay, so the songs may not all be as strong as they were leading up to 'Paradise Theatre', but this is still a really nice album which I have enjoyed way more than I expected to. I honestly thought I would miss Dennis DeYoung's vocals and performance, but that was not the case at all as Lawrence has been there for well over 20 years and is firmly in control, - strange to think he has now been in the band for way longer than the person he replaced. If this has been released in the Seventies then there is no doubt in my mind that it would have been yet another of their multi- platinum releases with songs which have catchy hooks and the Styx trademark sound all over them. It has been many years since they gained the success they so richly deserve but there is no doubt that with this album Styx have proved there is still plenty of life left in the AOR Gods yet and any fan of the classic years needs to hear this as it is a delight from beginning to end.

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