Styx - The Mission 6/16/17

I'm looking forward to this release and hope it truly goes back to the classic sound. They are saying this would fit between The Grand Illusion and Pieces Of Eight. Also interesting, is they recorded this in analog. I preordered the vinyl from the Styx website. Looking forward to playing it and flipping over to side 2. It is released this Friday.

The Mission
2017
Alpha Dog 2T/UMe Records
Release Date: June 16, 2017
By: Thom Jennings

Styx surprised their fan base with the announcement of their first album of new material in 14 years. The Mission is an ambitious concept album that is the band’s best effort since Kilroy was Here, the last album by the band’s classic lineup.

2017 marks the 40th anniversary of Styx’s breakthrough album The Grand Illusion which was their seventh album released on 7/7/77, and thus it seems appropriate that Styx has marked the anniversary with a solid new album.

The Mission has elements of the group’s progressive rock phase which culminated in a pair of the group’s iconic releases, Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight. The group continued with concept albums after that period but moved away from prog in favor of more succinct and radio-friendly songs.

If you have any knowledge of the bands Wooden Nickel era albums you may be struck at how The Mission seems to perfect what the band was doing back in the days before Tommy Shaw joined them and changed Styx’s trajectory forever.

From the opening notes of the first cut “Overture” it is evident that you will be in for a great ride. The first cut “Gone Gone Gone” is a short, energetic track that sets the stage for the subsequent tale about a mission to Mars. Lawrence Gowan’s vocals on the track and the rest of the album are special, and the track would be an ideal opener for their shows because it is instantly likable.

The rest of the album is filled with nuggets, and while The Mission is an album that should be listened from beginning to end, songs like “Radio Silence” and “Red Storm” are standout tracks that should wind up on your Styx playlist.

To sum all that up, The Mission is not an album of individual songs strung together haphazardly, it’s an album with a logical sequence of songs and a concept that is intriguing and easy to follow. The Mission has elements of early Styx albums like the often maligned The Serpent is Rising and the revered Equinox album that bridged the proggy Wooden Nickel catalogue with the A&M era. In many ways the album refines and perfects the early Styx sound with respect for the group’s early sound and Styx’s Important place in recorded music history.

At time The Mission sounds like classic Pink Floyd with hints of Canadian prog greats like Saga or Rush. The Canadian influence may be the result of Lawrence Gowan’s input, whatever the case it works incredibly well because while the album is complex, it is not filled with excess.

The Mission is an album that is worthy of many listens, and even after only four times through I have grown to appreciate the album more each listen. Hopefully there is enough support of the album to warrant it being performed live in its entirety.

Track Listing
01 Overture
02 Gone Gone Gone
03 Hundred Million Miles from Home
04 Trouble at the Big Show
05 Locomotive
06 Radio Silence
07 The Greater Good
08 Time May Bend
09 Ten Thousand Ways to Be Wrong
10 Red Storm
11 All Systems Stable
12 Khedive
13 The Outpost
14 Mission to Mars

 

No Dennis, no sale.

 

Yeah, I miss Dennis and unfortunately he won't be on it but I have liked what I have heard so far. I think back to 1986. I was a freshman in high school and loved 5150. Later that summer Eat 'Em & Smile came out so it was like I had TWO Van Halen albums. Same here, Dennis is working on a new album and this one is coming out. So it will be like getting 2 new Styx albums.

Here is another new video posted today:

 

Sorry, I don't understand how you can dismiss an album straight away without even listening (I'm assuming) because a band member isn't with the band anymore? Dennis hasn't been there for decades and as much as I would love a Dennis DeYoung Styx, let's see if this new one is good before dismissing it.

 

Dennis is working on a new album? Great news. Where did you hear this?

I love Tommy Shaw, but I am also of the opinion that there is no Styx without Dennis.

 

They've got a great lineup. I'm looking forward to this one.

 

I saw them what, a year ago? Was absolutely not impressed. They have put out a bunch of records since DDY left and all were lacking IMHO. They put a lot more money into this one. Nifty looking cover. But Styx is now in the same league as ELO II. The only thing of DDY solo I have is Desert Moon, But Dennis puts on a better Styx show than the band. He chose his wife over the band. Good for him.

 

It appears on Jim Peterik's facebook page:

I have been fortunate to have a chance to co-write with one of my Rock & Roll heroes- the great Dennis DeYoung. For the last few weeks we have been putting our heads together- listening to each other's rough ideas and creating and demoing some rough gems toward the creation of a brand new Dennis DeYoung album. He played me a few already written that floored me.
His last CD - "100 Years From Now" - was an awesome piece of work with the title track going number one all over Canada- especially Quebec.
Every time we'd run into each other at Patti's Cafe and when I opened for him at Star Plaza a few months back we discussed doing some writing. Now it's happening with Larry Millas adding a helpful ear and his recording expertise.

 

Sounds very Styx-ish to me. This is a tribute band playing the opening overture:

 

they have put out 1 album of new songs, a covers album and i think 4 other newly written songs on various releases since DDY left. thats not a bunch

 

I actually think the band chose no DDY over DDY.

 

Point of view. They were fed up with her being on tour with them, and the fact that after the show he retired for the night with his wife while they wanted to play rock stars on tour. They hated the concepts for albums he came up with that were hits.

And speaking of hits, he wrote the vast majority of their best material. Just sayin.

 

Man, talk about point of view...

 

Equinox is my favorite Styx album so I'll be picking this up. I have no problem with no Dennis. That ship has sailed.

 

Wow! How awesome! Can't wait for his next album. 100 Years From Now was amazing.

 

Mmmm, kinda. My impression was that they did not hate Paradise but did detest Kilroy-in I think it was Behind The Music Tommy Shaw talks about going out on stage at some festival after some super rocking band, and feeling totally stupid doing stilted dialog and totally blowing the chance to rock the crowd.

A lot of my favorite Styx stuff is Dennis', but what I heard of the new album on Jim Ladd's SiriusXM show was quite good.

Here's luck to Irving Azoff getting a Styx reunion to headline a "Classic Midwest" show next year
Hey, maybe they could get Vince Gill to step in for Dennis DeYoung

Meanwhile, if Dennis is too bored, maybe he could form a band with Ted Nugent and Jack Blades...

 

I'm looking forward to giving this a listen. I don't expect it will approach Grand Illusion or Pieces of Eight, but I would love to be wrong. Still, keeping my expectations at a minimum.

 

The story Chuck tells in his book was Dennis wouldn't bend at all it was his ideas they would do & that's the way it was going to be (Kilroy era ) & Tommy & JY were on eddie trunk about a week ago and the 1996 tour went really well ( I can't argue the show i saw on that toue was so good i had chills the whole show, they were that good ) but come time of the 98-ish toue they wanted to continue a bigger tour & dennis would only commit to a small amount of dates as he was working on some sort of musicals etc. & didn't have the time for a full styx tour ?

Just curious ( i like both Dennis & the current Styx) as a fan were you happy with the whole kilroy is hear album/ stage play etc. ?

 

I can't argue Dennis wrote amazing songs , but in my mind Tommy shaw is pretty equal fro writing great tunes Crystal ball , fooling youself "angry young man" , Man in the wilderness ,sing for the Day , Blue collar man , Renegade , Too much time on my hands ...

That's a lot of great tunes ...........

 

I will definitely be buying this. Tommy Shaw said he listened to a lot of Pink Floyd and Allan Parsons years ago and wanted to make this with great sound like they had on those albums. Recorded all in analog will be great for the vinyl.

Lawrence Gowan is an amazing performer and singer, very gifted. Don't worry about Dennis not being there, doesn't matter one bit.

 

The phrase "Greater than the sum of its parts" is applicable here.

 

My favourite Styx lp is Styx II. I'll give this new one a listen, i hope the vocalist has a voice i like as i've never heard him sing before.
I always though Dennis was a frustrated musical theatre artist. Don't get me wrong, i like him in Styx. I lost interest in the band when they released paradise theatre.[is that what it's called?]
I'm listening to various Dennis solo tracks on youtube and have to say they are not my cuppa tea. They sound so MOR and ballad-ee. He wrote some fantastic songs for Styx but he doesn't seem rock and roll to me tbh.

 

Well, I was not a rabid fan but I thought it was about a third great. I saw it as a bit of burn out. Never got to see the Kilroy tour, although if the way Dennis does it is any indication, it had to have been weird. As for the album, everybody was doing concept albums. Not everyone can do them well. Styx could, and did. Kilroy is NOT the best of their lot.

 

There was also quite a bit of tension during the recording of "Brave New World". Tommy & JY had songs they worked on together. Presented them to Dennis. He said they weren't good enough. They said "Ok, work on them and make them better, add some things to them" and he wouldn't. Tommy wrote "Everything Is Cool" and "Just Fell In" for Dennis to sing. He gave Dennis those songs and asked him to rework them and he didn't nor did he sing on them so Tommy took lead. JY was flying back anf forth between LA and Chicago. He asked Dennis at one point to fly with him to LA and Dennis said he was too ill. But that same week he flew to New York to work on Hunchback and I think that finally broke the camels back for JY. Part of the CMC International agreement was to tour. Dennis said he couldn't tour, Tommy said he was done. Dennis called Tom Lipsky at CMC and said Tommy didn't want to finish the album. Another part of the agreement with CMC is that the album have all three of them on it so Tommy ended up finishing the album. Chuck was very ill at the time and Glen Burtnik ghost played the bass tracks on most of the album and if you listen closely to the song "Number One" during the "Something Better" part of the song you can clearly hear Burtnik on backing vocals.

Anyway, BNW was a disaster sounding very fragmented with Dennis's songs sounding like solo songs (with the exception of While There's Still Time which was a left over track from Greatest Hits Part 2). BNW does have it's moments, there are some good songs from all of them on it but it sounds like solo album tracks from the 3 prinical members with different production elements. I also heard that Hank Horton from JY's band (and later Dennis's solo band) played bass on Dennis's tracks.

I'm the first to admit I was greatly disappointed when Dennis didn't tour with them in 1999. I saw the second night of the BNW tour in Missouri. Was a fantastic show. Later in Novemeber I saw them again in St. Louis at the Fox and they played Queen Of Spades and Half Penny, Two Penny. They dug deep and played over two hours (the opening act Big People did not perform -- I believe this is when Ben Orr was very ill and they cancelled).

So do I wish Dennis was still there? You betcha! I miss him dearly but glad he is doing his own thing playing a great show (and has even added Miss America to his set list).

But if he were on "The Mission" we might get something like "Back To Chicago", which was clearly not a Styx song. I love the song but it's a solo song with the members of Styx as a back up band. And for this release they wanted to go back and record something that would fit between Grand Illusion and Pieces Of Eight and this is the sound I have been wanting since 1990 when "Edge" came out. If you've never heard Back To Chicago, here it is for you to decide if it sounds like a Styx song or a solo song.

 

Great info , thanks for posting all that , i have to agree , although i liked parts of BNW , it was mostly a letdown from where i felt it could have been , some decent songs , but it really does not sound like STYX the band as a whole Edge of the century i was never much a fan of at all .
Looking forward to hearing the new album on friday , we'll see what we end up getting ...............