EQUINOX

Some good numbers as all mid-period Styx album have. Notably Madame Blue. this is the last album of Curulewski (and the first line-up change for a very stable outfit) as he will be replaced by Shaw. With this album Styx came into big-league radio-friendly FM rock with slight prog overtone. This is one of the core album of the classic period and not bad to start with. Better things to come, though.

This album was one of rock heroes in the seventies altogether with Deep Purple "Come Taste The Band", Led Zeppelin "Physical Graffiti", Gary Wright "Dream Weaver", Traffic "John Barleycorn Must Die", as well as Kayak "2nd". Yes, they are all different in their characters but they shared similar style and nuance: hard rock music. My best favorite track since that time until now is "Birn for Adventure" - what a rocking track! I was amazed with the energy, passion as well as powerfull bass guitar work combined with unique voice quality of Dennis De Young. WOW! This track is really suitable for you to play when you drive in relatively high speed at the highway and turn the music reaally LOUD! Yeah, you will get all details of the music. What a wonderful experience!

The other legendary track is of course the one which has melodic acoustic guitar at the opening ("Prelude 12"): "Suite Madame Blue". Time after time .. oh what a great entrance! I do enjoy this track as it combines nice n sweet music with hard rock with high driving rhythm and heavy riffs. This IS STYX, my friend. It rocks the world! The other interesting track is "Lorelei", "Light Up".

It's an excellent classic rock album. Keep on rockin' ..!

This is one of the bands, that i always listen with pleasure. Not on my top bands, but close enough. To me this album is prog from the first note till the last one, and tracks like Mother Dear, Suite Madame Blue, are timeless in my opinion. Maybe Styx is a softer version of Kansas, but this is no problem, they compose with grace and some of theyr albums are in prog history. Like this one, one of the best Styx, and why not in the '70. So my rate is 4 stars, for sure.

Styx is the river of Greek legend where the ferryman Charon will take souls to the other bank for eternal salvation if he is given a coin. Very progressive theme really and in the case of the famous Chicago-based band, best expressed with their album Equinox. I am not a fan but there are 3 outstanding pieces on this solid recording, all highly popular in the glory days of FM radio and college run stations: "Light Up" (hint?) and "Lorelei" were just extraordinarily catchy and well-rounded rock songs but "Suite Madame Blue" remains a masterpiece of the times (with Boston's "More Than a Feeling" or Zep's "Stairway to Heaven") that keeps eliciting smiling pleasures, an fabulous acoustic intro evolving into a sizzling hurrah that lingers long after the powering off. Now, one, two or even three songs a magnum opus do not make but "Equinox" has a lot going for it, even the only Styx album that deserves inclusion in a Prog collection. Whether arguable or not, Dennis DeYoung certainly can sing (some do not like his voice though) with conviction, his keyboard playing really quite first-rate both on piano and synthesizers. "Light Up" starts off highly upbeat with a smashing "entrée en matière", a tortuous synth flight leading the melodic charge, held by a harsh guitar rhythm and an all a round good tune. "Lorelei" is quite similar to the opener, a hard ballad ("Oh when she moves.") with perhaps a tad corny love lyrics ("Let's Live Together", a new social fad in the early 70s) and a jaunty instrumental mid-section that breathes excitement. Not being gaga over the boys from O'Hare, the balance until the whopping finale is just average ,neither fab or drab in my opinion. Fast forward. The real masterstroke is the Suite Madame Blue, an intensely innuendo-laced song about a hopeless affair with brothel owner but really about the rotting American Dream needing a wake up call. (Rock music started out as protest music anyway, railing against the injustices caused by world politics, whether local or international). The echo-laced acoustic guitar overture still provides goose bumps three decades later, DeYoung passionate lyrics expertly expressed (" Time after time I sit and I wait for your call I know I'm a fool but why can I say Whatever the price I'll pay for you, Madame Blue Once long ago, a word from your lips and the world turned around. But somehow you've changed; you're so far away I long for the past and dream of the days with you, Madame Blue"). Sinfield, Ian Anderson or Fish , this is obviously not .When the full steamroller might of the main theme kicks in, it really hits you in the gut, loaded with powerful bass and drums, James Young's heavy guitar and relatively complex rock arrangements. Yeah, It ain't Yes or Tull or Floyd but it's really so appealing. So it's on the other side of the musical river, pay the ferryman and cross the Styx and feel the..3 Melting Ice Cubes

"Equinox" marks Curulewski's swansong as a Styx member alter the irregular "Man of Miracles". Fortunately enough, "Equinox" finds the band bouncing back headlong for the progressive tendencies that had been cleverly displayed in the repertoires of albums 2 and 3 (particularly the latter, "The Serpent Is Rising"). While not matching the sonic power nor the compositional splendor of the "Serpent" album, "Equinox" still brings deeply interesting things for the average symphonic rock fan sensitive to the flavors of US-style melodic rock. After all, that's what Styx essentially was all about before "Cornerstone", a melodic rock band with easily noticeable prog traces and crafty musicianship beyond the average publicly successful rock band. Curulewski and Young return in full form to the use of elegance in their dual interactions when not soloing in ostentatious fashion; DeYoung is genuinely interested in exploring the colors and textures of synthesizers in many portions of the album's tracklist (occasionally, so is Curulewski). The album kicks off with 'Light Up', an intended anthem for the high spirit of rock, a celebration of what rock 'n' roll is all about when performed on stage. Catchy but not particularly special in art-rock terms, and the same can be said about 'Lorelei'. The symphonic elements becomes really patent for the first time in Curulewski-penned 'Mother Dear', a powerful track that can easily be described as "Masque"-era Kansas-meets-"Dark Side"-era PF. The contrast between the dual guitar driven passages and the dual synth sections is well managed, since the contrast in itself is not too pronounced. 'Lonely Child' is your typical DeYoung power ballad: well written, impressively arranged, something like 'Lady' with a heavier dose of Yessian ornaments in the intro and the last guitar solos, less piano and more featured acoustic guitars during the first sung sections. 'Midnight Ride' is a catchy rocker, entertaining and with excellent heavy leads by a Young gone wild. Equally urgent but a bit more sophisticated is 'Born for Adventure', a rocker that maybe demanded a bit more sophistication than the level actually delivered (I'm thinking of 'Earl of Roseland' and 'Jonas Psalter' as winners in comparison). The last two pieces seem to form a joint venture: Curulewski's 12-string guitar prelude (a-la Greg Lake's 'The Sage') properly generates the introductory mood for 'Suite Mother Blue', one of DeYoung's most sensitive politically charged songs ever. This antimilitaristic anthem states a call to conscience about the final farewell to overseas-oriented politics and a return to a serious approach to internal social issues from politicians and leaders. A beautiful end for a fine album; it is also an end to an era of musical exploration that was about to meet its central focus, but that was reserved for the first years of the Shaw-era. and other reviews than this one.

Styx lightens up

After two harder rocking (but sadly very uneven) albums, Styx 'lightens up' considerably with this fifth album. They also abandoned their former record company and acquired a much more glossy production as well as strengthened their Pop sensibilities. This is a streamlined Styx. The result is a much more coherent, but also much more lightweight and light-hearted album, clearly geared for more mainstream audiences and the FM radio. Styx is sometimes said to be the American counterpart to Queen, but I prefer to see them as the American counterpart to The Sweet!

However, they did not completely abandon Hard Rock and Prog. These aspects of the band where still there and would remain so on subsequent albums. Traces of their old style can be found on several tracks. But the progressive moments, like on Mother Dear, often feel watered down and sounds a bit thin to my ears, lacking in substance. Songs like Midnight Ride, on the other hand, are just straightforward Hard Rock 'N' Roll with little or no distinguishing features.

It is from Born For Adventure onwards that the album starts to become interesting, but it is to late to save the album from a low rating. Prelude 12/Suite Madame Blue pretends to be progressive and this is among the best moments of Equinox.

In some ways this can be seen as a transitional album from the Wooden Nickel days to the more commercially successful Styx of the later 70's and early 80's. There are some good moments here, but overall this is not really my cup of tea. Styx made better albums both before and after this one.

Styx seem to be at the crossroads of pop rock and prog rock; the whole feeling of their style is a bit pompous with plenty of keyboard work and fantasy themes to go around, yet the structures of the songs don't go overboard in complexity and neither do the instrumentalists. EQUINOX to me is nothing more than a decent rock album with tinges of prog and pop (possibly defining AOR, but I'm not an expert in that genre). While there isn't a bad song amongst the bunch, only ''Suite Madame Blue'' has the guts to stick out. The various dynamic changes in that song are extremely effective with the climactic guitar riff punctuating everything that Styx are capable of.

There's not much else to speak of in terms of the remaining songs other than ''Prelude 12'' is a great lead-in to ''Suite Madame Blue''. For those two songs, this album is worth at least an investigation.

If "The Grand Illusion" is the peak in STYX's career "Equinox" is a fundamental album in the career of the guys from Chicago, being that marks the point in which the band starts to find the definitive sound that would make them transcend the frontiers of "The Windy City" and give that extra step that divides good local bands from icons of a decade.

Their first three releases are very strong Progressive Rock oriented albums, but they never defined a clear an unique style, the fourth album "Man of Miracles" is a first attempt of blending the various musical preferences of their members, but the result is pretty uneven.

And at last with "Equinox" they begin to leave the past behind and to create a new sound that would balance the theatric style of DeYoung, the harder edge of James "JY" Young and the Prog approach of John Curulewsky in a Pop/Rock album with Prog leanings that would be one of the first examples of what will be known as AOR, in other words a commercial and conservative evolution of Progressive Rock, but incredibly successful in the late 70's, reaching levels of popularity that very few 100% Progressive Rock bands ever dreamed of.

Despite the big jump that "Equinox" represents, they are unable to leave behind the problem of depending almost exclusively in the nasal vocals of Dennis DeYoung, something that will only be solved when Tommy Shaw joined the band on Crystal Ball and allowed STYX to have two (sometimes three) lead vocalists, giving a more versatile sound.

The album opens with "Light Up" and "Lorelei", two songs that present us for the first time the definitive style of STYX, some sort of Melodic Pop/Rock with Prog leanings, but a peculiar sound that can easily hook Pop and Prog listeners with the balance between catchy music with elaborate structure and fantastic chorus.

"Mother Dear" is one of the last and finest examples of John Curulewsky's Prog sensibility, a track that combines the complexity of early KANSAS with the vocal work of QUEEN, lush keyboards provided by him and Dennis, in other words a magnificent song that deserves much more recognition than what it gets.

After "Lonely Child", more or less in the vein of the first two tracks comes "Midnight Ride" in which "JY" is allowed to rock as hard as he cans with the confidence that can only be provided by a band capable of playing in different styles with almost no problem, something that is even more evident after listening "Born for Adventure" another hard rock song but more sophisticate.

"Prelude 12" is a very short but extremely beautiful 12 string guitar Curulewsky song that reminds of Greg Lake acoustic side and works as an introduction for "Suite Madam Blue", in my opinion the best song of all the album, in which the band combines the skills of all the members with an elaborate and pompous composition by Dennis DeYoung that closes the album in great form.

After recognizing the importance of the Panozzo twins, who may not write songs, but provide a solid rhythm section, comes the difficult part of rating the album, because even when "Equinox" doesn't have the Prog sensibility of the first two releases or the brilliance of "The Grand Illusion", it's a solid album marks the end of one era and the beginning of another one in STYX's career, so being that we don't have half stars to give the proper 3.5 rating, I have to go with 4 stars.

Winds of change everywhere

The transitional fifth Styx album "Equinox" would mark the end of the John Curulewski era, as well as the beginning of Styx's lucrative association with A&M Records, and the band's first attempt at producing themselves. Curulewski joined the band in 1968 and left just after the release of "Equinox" which came out in late 1975. It was perhaps one of the world's most ill timed career moves as Styx was just about to break in a big way after years of struggle. But Curulewski was tired of the road and wanted more time with his family. He would teach guitar and work in the music business until his tragically young death of a brain aneurysm in 1988. Some of the Styx insiders are less kind in speaking of Curulewski, calling him a "negative person" and the only one who was never happy and couldn't get along with the others. After starting the "Equinox" tour there was a gig in Jacksonville where Curulewski and DeYoung got into it after what was felt to be a sub-par performance at an important show. DeYoung called him on it, and Curulewski quit on the spot. This led to the arrival of Tommy Shaw in the band, a crucial turning point for them.

While the album was modestly successful and eventually went Gold, and while DeYoung claimed to be newly inspired by the fresh A&M deal, I find "Equinox" to be one of the least enticing Styx titles. It delivers a modest hit single I never liked in "Lorelei" as well as the fairly annoying opener "Light Up." "Mother Dear" is a good track with some wispy slide guitar licks and an ethereal DeYoung keyboard part, and "Born for Adventure" is also cool. The album features the first Styx "epic" in "Suite Madame Blue" which was introduced by Curulewski's "Prelude 12," a little acoustic number which supposedly took him hours to record. It's a solid track they laid down in one take, with a mysterious presence and nice vocal arrangements, the acoustic beginning turning into a power chord laden chorus. Still, if you listen closely, it is not really very interesting and falls short of where they would be very soon. DeYoung's material is still progressing, decent but not overwhelming, while in my opinion Curulewski's heart had already left. His enthusiasm does not seem to be present and the album suffers for it.

"Equinox" is an improvement over "Man of Miracles" and one can hear the classic Styx sound taking shape, especially on James Young's muscular "Born for Adventure." But it was still just the warm-up. 3 stars, but just barely.

I really felt the first four Styx albums for Wooden Nickel had been often a confusing mess. Should they be a prog rock band or a boogie rock band? It seems that James Young was the most inclined to hard rock, John Curulewski seemed really schizophronic (should he do prog or should he do boogie?), and Dennis DeYoung most content with ballads (although they weren't all like "Lady"). Of course, the delayed success of "Lady" from their second album gave the band notice from A&M and Equinox was the debut on the label. Right away, a big improvement over Man of Miracles. The band is now more focused. One of the first songs I remembered from my early childhood was "Light Up". I remembered this song in 1976 being played on the radio. It's probably the first song I can ever remember. It's a Dennis DeYoung number, and this song proves he can rock. It's an upbeat, celebratory number, with a nice synth solo. "Lorelei" was another rocking number from DeYoung. If think of Dennis DeYoung as "Lady" and "Babe", these two songs might make you change your mind (to be fair, Tommy Shaw, though not on this album, made some great songs like "Fooling Yourself", "Crystal Ball" and "Sing for the Day", and clunkers like "Shooz", "Superstars" and "She Cares"). "Mother Dear" is a fantastic hard rocking number with proggy overtones, with John Curulewski credited to this. DeYoung goes into ballad mode with "Lonely Child", but not in the "Lady" or "Babe" style, and definitely one of his better ballads (along with "Golden Lark" from Man of Miracles"). "Midnight Ride" and "Born for Adventure" are rocking numbers, it's little surprise that James Young would be responsible for these songs. He seemed more resistant to doing anything proggy, "Snowblind", on the not particularly progressive Paradise Theater was about as proggy as James Young went. For these different personalities, it's a miracle the band lasted as long as it did. And John Curulewski's departure after finishing this album was because he wanted to settle into family life. "Prelude" is a short, acoustic piece from Curulewski, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the acoustic guitar intro to Yes' "And You and I", which leads up to the epic "Suite Madame Blue". It seems like it's the band's own version of Kansas' "Song For America", not that it sounds the same, but that similar theme on America as it was in the 1970s. While "Come Sail Away" might be Dennis DeYoung's best known epic, "Suite Madame Blue" is without a doubt his best.

Styx is often a maligned band. FM radio overplay has a lot to do with it. Or the fact they might come across as watered down compared to the British prog rock bands of the time. Plus they were responsible (along with Foreigner, Boston, and yes, even Kansas), in no small role, the rise of AOR on FM radio. Luckily with Equinox, while a couple of the songs receive occasional FM radio play, it's nothing like the stuff they did after 1976. If you don't have an aversion to Styx, I really feel Equinox is by far their best!

After enjoying what I've heard on The Grand Illusion and Pieces Of Eight, I continued forwards in Styx discography with Cornerstone and all the way to Edge Of The Century. I found their '80s material slightly weaker than the golden era tracks, from the late '70s, and so the logical step was to reverse my direction and go backwards in Styx discography!

Equinox was released in 1975 and is the final album featuring John Curulewski before Tommy Shaw took over the songwriting, guitar and vocal duties in the band. The overall feel of the album isn't far from that on The Grand Illusion and Pieces Of Eight but I lack a real standout track here even though a few come close!

Dennis DeYoung does a great job with the opening track Light Up which definitely sets the mood for the listener and the record continues to shine with the rock anthem Lorelei, eclectic sounding Mother Dear and the ballad Lonely Child. Unfortunately this is where it all comes to a halt once James Young gets a moment in the spotlight with his pretty bland songwriting and vocal skills on Midnight Ride. The song just doesn't do it for me and feels completely out of place with the rest of the material; a track that I tend to skip.

Born For Adventure continues the trend of blandness even though the composition itself is not too bad. It's a pity that the chorus really ruins this song and no matter how much I try I just can't enjoy this track. Fortunately the remaining two tracks manage to rebuild some of the momentum that was featured on the first four tracks.

Prelude 12 is a short but very necessary instrumental by John Curulewski that works as an interlude between the two bland rockers and the Styx classic known as Suite Madame Blue. This final track is one of those instances that I kind of wish that the band could have been even more creative in their writing. The track has a strong melody and the opening interlude makes it seem that we are going to be treated to an opus. This promise unfortunately never manifests itself and the 6+ minutes go faster than I would have liked them to. I strongly believe that Suite Madame Blue could have been one of the definite progressive rock tracks if only Styx had the nerve to transform it into a 10+ minute composition by adding a couple of instrumental passages.

The overall feel that I get from Equinox is that Styx is definitely getting on the right track with this record but they lack the creative chemistry between Tommy Shaw and Dennis DeYoung. Good, but non-essential album for fans of melodic art rock music.

**** star songs: Light Up (4:19) Lorelei (3:23) Mother Dear (5:30) Lonely Child (3:49) Prelude 12 (1:20) Suite Madame Blue (6:30)

*** star songs: Midnight Ride (4:19) Born For Adventure (5:16)

Styx has never been one of my favorites; in fact, the first time I heard of the band was when Homer Simpson referenced hearing them on an episode of the "King Biscuit Flower Hour." This was when I was about 13-years old, so give me a break. Later, my first boss introduced the band to me, knowing I was a fan of Journey and eager for more music. I got a "best of" album of theirs that I pretty much hated. I gave it a 1-star review here at Prog Archives, saying that it "contains every stinky-sweet radio anthem the group ever recorded... and it's terrible." After listening to Equinox a half-dozen times, I happily hold to the opinion of that album, because Equinox contains a much more diverse, interesting, and enjoyable collection of songs than the schmaltzy, synth-dominated mess of the band's hits. In fact, Equinox is pretty darn good!

Equinox opens with two very catchy songs. "Light Up" is a laid back party song (surprise), and "Lorelei" is an upbeat sing your heart out kind of FM anthem. Once the band gets those out of the way, the album gets interesting. "Mother Dear" is a great demonstration of the band's blend of artist/progressive elements with legitimately enjoyable hard rock. A nice blend of sounds, singing, and energy. This blend continues to the conclusion of the album, with "Born for Adventure" and "Suite Madame Blue" standing out to me as the winning tracks. "Midnight Ride" dips back into a Deep Purple-ish party song, but I caught myself toe-tapping regardless. The songs are catchy without sounding obnoxiously poppy, and big without sounding overly-ambitious. I still think DeYoung's solo vocals are awful, but they don't spoil the show. Luckily there are enough instrumental moments and vocal harmonies that Equinox isn't dependent on a front man to be enjoyable.

All in all a good, proggish album. It didn't blow me away but I've let go of my Styx hatred after listening.

Songwriting: 3 - Instrumental Performances: 3 - Lyrics/Vocals: 2 - Style/Emotion/Replay: 3

I was a late-comer to this album, mostly due to the fact that I had fallen into the miasma of true progressive rock and left the proto-, pseudo-, fringe-, and "-related" prog pretenders behind in favor of the likes of the real deal (Yes, Genesis, Nektar, Focus, Supertramp, Jean-Luc Ponty, Return to Forever, etc.) But then when Grand Illusion hit the scene, I had to look back. When I did deign to revisit the Styx albums that had appeared between Styx II and Grand Illusion, two albums, in particular, stuck out--primarily due the fact that both presented to the world each with two undeniably "classic" prog-rocky songs: from Equinox, "Lorelei" and "Light Up" and then "jennifer" and the title song from Crystal Ball (and, probably, "Mademoiselle"). Plus, both contained another one of the band's trademark pseudo- prog "epics": here "Prelude 12" and "Suite Madame Blue." Again, not truly prog, they are definitely on the fringes, with many of the trademark sounds and flourishes that make for some of the best progressive rock music--including great arrangements, great instrumental playing, great vocal harmonies, and great production. They just had too many melodic hooks (which made their stuff radio- and teenie-friendly) and compact, concise recordings (though some of their five-minute songs sure packed a ton of tension and dynamics into them!) And, again, I can't really claim this 3.5 star album to be "an excellent acquisition for all prog music lovers" but it is, to me, a sign of a band at the peak of its strengths--of which Styx had many (which might be why so many of us use them as a comparative reference when trying to assess, define, and describe modern bands). The bottom line is that this is a very solid album that has all of its songs deserving of attention and criticism.