There’s a world-weary melancholy, a hard-won realism, to Styx’s new song that didn’t exist in Tommy Shaw’s fun-rocking “Renegade” days, and that points the way out of the band’s more recent habit of backtracking.
It’s not just the rest of Regeneration, Vols. I and II, which finds Styx rerecording some of its best-known tracks with next-generation singer Lawrence Gowan. In fact, since the departure in 1999 of Dennis DeYoung, Shaw and Co. have issued five concert recordings and — in the last four years alone — at least seven best-of packages. Styx’s most recent original long-player was Big Bang Theory from all the way back in 2005, leaving many to wonder if the group was spent creatively.
Fast forward to “Difference in the World,” the finale on Disc 1 of a new 16-song compilation issued by this week by Eagle Records. Shaw, over a plaintive guitar shape, admits: “It’s hard to keep from giving up. It’s hard to make a difference in the world today.” But, through the course of a complex and involving musical soundtrack, Shaw rouses himself to try again — in a nice metaphor for the band itself.
There’s a similar maturity to Shaw’s new interpretation of his signature Styx hit “Crystal Ball,” where he updates the song’s original coming-of-age angst with a hard-eyed resonance that only comes from experience. But the difference on this new cut is more particular, more complete.
“Wait, wait, I take it all back — sometimes, you’ve just need to reel in the slack,” Shaw sings, as a gorgeous chorus gives way to this swooning guitar interlude. His demeanor is, by then, completely transformed: “Are the wolf or are you the sheep? Are you still asleep? It’s hard, but you’ve got to keep from giving up.”
[SOMETHING ELSE! REWIND: Recalling Styx favorites from ‘Equinox,’ ‘Crystal Ball,’ ‘Grand Illusion,’ ‘Paradise Theater’ and, yes, even ‘Kilroy Was Here’.]
This uplifting, every-man track also benefits from its musically diverse setting, and it’s easy to draw a straight line from Shaw’s left-turn bluegrass triumph of last year right to the smartly attenuated, refreshingly un-bombastic (all due respect, Mr. DeYoung) construction of “Difference in the World.”
In another era, all of that might have spelled a big comeback hit. For now, it will just have to do as a roadmap — finally — toward the next era for Styx.
Regeneration Vols. I and II features 13 Styx classics, along with “Difference” and two new interpretations of tunes recorded during Shaw’s tenure with Jack Blades and Ted Nugent in Damn Yankees, “High Enough” and “Coming of Age.” Gowan — who sounds in many ways like DeYoung, but with considerably less Broadway-style vocal theatrics — handles all but one of tunes most closely associated with Styx’s departed original lead singer. The exception is “Lorelei,” which features James “JY” Young on vocals. Ricky Phillips and Todd Sucherman continue to fill in for the late John Panozzo and the semi-retired Chuck Panozzo, respectively.
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Reviews don’t lie. Other reviews are just as bad.
sorry styx
Styx – Regeneration: Volumes I & II
Eagle Records
http://www.eaglerockent.com
http://www.styxworld.com
Rating: D
Many rock fans do not realize that many of their favorite bands do not own the rights to their own material. With classic rock tunes being favorites of advertisers, and advertisers willingness to pay big bucks to use these tunes in commercials, many bands redo their own songs in order to have something that they own to sell for these commercials. They also are handy to force the hardcore fan base completists to shell out a few more bucks for new product – err, sorta new product – to add to their collection.
Whether this was the reason Styx released a two-disc set of their own tunes or not, only the band and their management knows.
It’s a shame this type of thing has to go on, as it really makes bands like Styx look as if they are out of original ideas. The fact that this ‘Styx’ album also contains two Damn Yankees songs on it only adds to the confusion.
The only interesting things about this album are the songs that Lawrence Gowan sings. Gowan replaced Dennis DeYoung and hearing his take on classics Styx tunes, including “The Grand Illusion” and “Come Sail Away,” is something different. However, he can be heard singing these songs on any of the live CDs or DVDs that have been released since he has been in the band.
This is a throwaway album that really is not that impressive. There is a new song titled “Difference in the World” but, at the end of the day, it does more to make one wonder if the band really is out of good ideas, as it is a forgettable song.
Perhaps the time has come for Styx to take a few years off the road and recharge their batteries. Can anyone say, “Damn Yankees reunion?”
By Jeb Wright
I think I see more promise in this new song that the quoted reviewer, who seems overly disappointed by a trend we’ve seen with increasing regularity lately: The re-recording of old songs with a new singer. I completely understand the economic, if not the artistic, impulse in such things. And even if I didn’t, it’s not like Styx came up with the idea on their own. My concern was wider in scope: Tommy Shaw and Co.’s packaging and repackaging of hits, coupled with a series of live recordings, coupled again with this new two-disc redo has ultimately offered little sense of what the band is capable of anymore. The exception, for me, is “Difference” — which, to return to a familiar lyric, seems to show us the way. I’d welcome something more along those lines …