Styx - Circling From Above (2025)

It’s not a bona fide concept LP à la 2017’s Mission, which imagined a recce to Mars in 2033, but Styx’s 18th album continues the long-running US band’s recent prog- orientated renaissance, as last heard on 2021’s Crash Of The Crown. Amid a seven-piece line-up with talent to burn, old- hand guitarists James ‘JY’ Young and Tommy Shaw plus founding (and these days part-time) bassist Chuck Panozzo sound galvanised and vital, while younger co-writers Will Evankovich (guitar, mandolin, vocals) and Lawrence Gowan (piano, synth, Mellotron) prove especially crucial to these hyper-melodic, ingeniously succinct songs.

With Evankovich also acting as producer, drummer Todd Sucherman and Panozzo’s job-sharer Terry Gowan flesh out proceedings on a record ostensibly concerning the ways in which our world’s ever-growing slag heap of obsolete technology can affect us. This concept may be timely but its execution is a tad on the woolly side, though, so it’s perhaps best to focus on Circling From Above’s inspired, uniformly excellent music.

If there’s initially a Supertramp-circa-The Logical Song-vibe to The Things That You Said, it soon opens out into ELO-ish territory. There’s sometimes a flamboyant rock musical feel, serving as a reminder of Styx’s classic 1981 LP Paradise Theatre. Elsewhere, Blue-Eyed Raven’s Greek folk elements and The Devil Went Down To Georgia fiddle courtesy of guest musician Aubrey Haynie suggests that Styx’s touchstone is conceivably Boat On The River, from their 1979 album Cornerstone. No Styx LP would be complete without James Young hamming it up a tad, hence he lends his slightly daft Shakespearian baritone to harmonica-imbued rocker King Of Love. As Circling From Above sets out a stall which sounds both vintage and fresh, it’s all part of the fun.

With Lawrence Gowan employing synth tones evocative of blockbuster mid-70s Styx albums such as Crystal Ball and The Grand Illusion, Shaw and Evankovich trading wonderful guitar solos, and the usual surfeit of sublime vocal harmonies on offer, Styx 2025 are anything but a spent force. Witness deft, powerful stand-out It’s Clear or Everybody Raise A Glass, the latter an acknowledged nod to 1970s Queen right down to its Freddie Mercury-like piano pomp and lyrical, Brian May-esque solo.

Like recent albums by fellow veterans Jethro Tull or Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks, Circling From Above constitutes a late-period flourish. Not quite the best of times for Styx, of course, but a lot closer to that than one might expect from a band in its sixth decade of existence.