MR

This one rocks! Great classic sounding Styx!

Greater Good & Locomotive are my two favs so far. Both songs are GREAT. I REALLY like the entire album.

Wonder if when Styx plays the smaller venues alone if they will play this entire album in it's entirety ( Act 1), then close with their greatest hits (Act 2). If so I am there FOR SURE.

Wonder if DDY will give this a listen and what he thinks??

Wonder if Tommy,Chuck, JY gave 100Years From Now a listen or two and what they thought.

Wonder also in 5-6 years if JY's concept of robots piloting a spaceship to Saturn will catch on.

Toph - hope this did NOT hijack your Assembly Like. Ive only listened to Outpost 3-4 times and it hasnt grabbed me yet. I like it but not on the level of Greater Good, Locomotive & Radio Silence

Toph wrote:This one rocks! Great classic sounding Styx!

I agree! I also really like Red Storm.

My standouts are Locomotive, The Outpost, Red Storm and Time May Bend. I have to give Tommy major props for this project. Not taking anything away from anyone else, but clearly he was the driving force and it turned out extremely well. Hell, my chief complaint is that the album isn't longer. Well, that and JY's vocal delivery on his track, but that's minor compared to the positives. So very glad Styx decided to finally release new music. I hope they keep it up. I don't expect an album every 2 years, but clearly this band still has something to offer other than playing the hits. I'd love to see them play this album in its entirety for DVD. But for now I'm very satisfied with this.

Outpost, The Greater Good, RedStorm, 1000 Ways, and Locomotive are really great tunes.
Toph- way to have an open mind, Outpost is my favorite track. Really great.

Baron Von Bielski wrote:My standouts are Locomotive, The Outpost, Red Storm and Time May Bend. I have to give Tommy major props for this project. Not taking anything away from anyone else, but clearly he was the driving force and it turned out extremely well. Hell, my chief complaint is that the album isn't longer. Well, that and JY's vocal delivery on his track, but that's minor compared to the positives. So very glad Styx decided to finally release new music. I hope they keep it up. I don't expect an album every 2 years, but clearly this band still has something to offer other than playing the hits. I'd love to see them play this album in its entirety for DVD. But for now I'm very satisfied with this.

Tommy may have been the driving force behind the project, but Gowan's songs are far superior. Gowan brings his A game here. His songs are the standout ones.

With Cyclorama, Gowan was still the "new guy" and it must have affected his writing for whatever reason. Not that his songs on that album were bad, but you can tell now that after 18 years with Styx, he has really grown into his position with the band and his tracks are definitely the standout ones on The Mission. Very talented guy.

I think that on both Cyclo and The Mission that Lawrence tracks were the standouts (Burtnik's too). Having said that- look closely at The Mission credits. What I thought MUST BE a Gowan track actually seemed to have a lot of Shaw input as well. I get so tired of people beating up on Gowan because he's not DeYoung. He shouldn't be and if you take that out of the equation... I mean, damn, listen to his contributions. They're excellent and so very Styx (with a dose of Queen and some British Influence tossed in).

outpost is one of my faves as well.

the whole album has really gown on me in a positive way. i liked it alot when i first heard it, but now after spinning it multiple times, I am in love with it. really glad they did it.

brywool wrote:I think that on both Cyclo and The Mission that Lawrence tracks were the standouts (Burtnik's too). Having said that- look closely at The Mission credits. What I thought MUST BE a Gowan track actually seemed to have a lot of Shaw input as well. I get so tired of people beating up on Gowan because he's not DeYoung. He shouldn't be and if you take that out of the equation... I mean, damn, listen to his contributions. They're excellent and so very Styx (with a dose of Queen and some British Influence tossed in).

I noticed that too. Tommy is all over the album which is why I said he was the driving force. It's basically TS and his collaborator Will with minimal writing credits from anyone else. Doesn't matter, the album is extremely good. I've listened to it from start to finish a number of times already. I rarely do that.