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Styx - Cornerstone CD (album) cover

CORNERSTONE

Styx

 

Prog Related

2.75 | 223 ratings

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SouthSideoftheSky
Special Collaborator
Symphonic Team
1 stars 'What's a nice song like you doing in a place like this?'

Cornerstone is one of Styx' weakest albums. Surprisingly, it contains one of their best songs in the folky Boat On The River. While Pieces Of Eight went too far towards straightforward Arena rock, Cornerstone goes too far towards syrupy ballads. The next album, Paradise Theater, could be seen as an attempt to strike a decent balance between the two directions.

But the heavy emphasis on ballads and the near-absence of Hard Rock is not the only problem that plagues Cornerstone. The biggest problem is the uninspired song writing. There is almost nothing memorable on the whole album. And then there is Babe. Perhaps not the worst song the band ever made, but it is not far from it!

Boat On The River is a great song, however. This acoustic number with an excellent mandolin solo is really a surprise and a very unusual song in the Styx catalogue. I read somewhere that this song became the band's biggest European hit. I can understand why. But one good song in an ocean of uninspired music is not enough to push this up to two stars. Besides, this song is available elsewhere. The closing song is also fully listenable, but this also is not enough to save this album from being an overall poor effort.

One (and a half) star.

SouthSideoftheSky | 1/5 |

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