ALBUMS
Styx
American AOR veterans’ spirited, pandemic-defying return.
Crash Of The Crown ALPHADOG 2T/UME
There’s a concept currently gaining traction in these troubled times, known as ‘toxic positivity’. It’s the idea that when people are constantly telling you: “Cheer up! Might never happen”, “You should be grateful for what you’ve got”, and other such supposedly positive bon mots, it’s actually harmful, and represents an unhelpful, gaslighting refusal to accept someone’s legitimate feelings.
Doubtless quite a few people are feeling like victims of toxic positivity right now, of course. So maybe the last thing we need is a bunch of wealthy, successful AOR veterans of a supposedly gentler era telling us they’re determined to look on the bright side of life. And yet Crash Of The Crown, Styx’s new album, while occasionally verging on self-parody in its dogged determination to lift our mood, succeeds admirably in its upbeat message, by channelling the timeless power of melodic soft rock.
Opening salvo Fight Of Our Lives sets the theme with a gung-ho anthem in which banks of Asia-style vocal harmonies are punctuated by pugnacious riffs and proggy synth flourishes, while guitar licks reminiscent of Brian May at Queen’s most peacockish squeal across the top. That’s not the only time that reference point emerges. Crash Of The Crown could quite possibly be a lost Queen track, even up to the point where on the final section of a track that features three separate vocalists, frontman Lawrence Gowan sounds like Freddie Mercury has risen from the grave.
Elsewhere, more traditional pop-rock characteristics win the day. Reveries is a stirring rocker redolent of ELO with no orchestra required, and To Those insists, with harmony-fuelled wind in its hair:
‘We have faith in the human race’. Even more determined positivity is carried on the back of Our Wonderful Lives’ folk-rock march, which resolves: ‘I’m throwing back the curtains for some sun on our face’.