CRYSTAL BALL

First Styx album with Tommy Shaw. Very melodic, heavily orchestrated pop-hard-rock (or AOR) with choral vocals. Whenever they have some catchy melodies and have some attractive moments in their songs, the albums isn't as bad as could be.

Music is slightly connected with prog-rock, using elements of pop-hard-rock and prog- rock both. Technically musicians are far from virtuosity, but as prog-related band are attractive enough to be listened.

Different from their very early raw rocky works, this album contains many elements of typical Styx style ( characteristic sound for their moment of popularity). However still not polished and balanced till their final product. 50/50 of good/bad songs proportion.

I don't think this album could be interesting for people outside of Styx fan club. Somewhere around 2,5.