For a band that has its roots in progressive rock, it’s no shock to study that Crash of the Crown, the brand new Styx album which is being launched this week (June 18), might have been a double LP.

Nonetheless, the group determined it was higher to not overstay their welcome (though they did discover a technique to slip a few the additional songs from the classes out to the followers by way of a particular Document Retailer Day launch).

“We by no means prefer to transcend the bounds of two sides of a 12 inch vinyl disc,” guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw tells UCR. “Our problem is to make someone sit there and never go stroll away earlier than you get via aspect one,” he says. “Not solely that, we would like them to go, ‘Okay, I need to hear what’s on aspect two.’”

The group is at the moment having fun with a flood of creativity which started once they had been within the midst of making their final album, 2017’s The Mission. A lot in order that they stored writing songs, lengthy after classes for that album had wrapped up.

Shaw, specifically, watched his writing relationship with Will Evankovich, the multi-instrumentalist who has grow to be a significant cog within the internal workings of Styx, proceed to flourish. “In truth, we’ve bought stuff that we don’t know what to do with,” he says. “Sufficient for a solo album — however I’m not prepared to do this proper now.”

One aspect which stored their inventive course of flowing was that they had been cautious to not get hung up on what was good and what was dangerous. “Working with Will, we’d simply go, ‘Let’s write the crap.’ You realize, some songs are simply crap,” Shaw explains. “They arrive out that method. And there’s no redeeming qualities. We’ve bought a couple of of these. However there’s different ones that actually, we might do one thing with them.”

When the band lastly determined to dam out a while to work on the brand new album, they already had a head begin, with a framework of potentialities starting to congeal. ”Among the songs had been a couple of years outdated, at the very least the origins of the songs. We had been engaged on a few of them. In 2019, we had recorded some of these things and had been beginning to stockpile.”

They’d enjoyable throughout the classes, pushing one another into new territory — Evankovich had a imaginative and prescient of pulling a David Bowie-esque vocal — suppose “Cat Folks (Placing Out Hearth)” — from veteran guitarist and vocalist James “J.Y.” Younger for the epic title observe. “Will would generally ask me to do as much as eight passes on numerous issues, and I by no means love to do greater than two or three,” Younger recalled on the band’s web site. “However I respect Will as a producer and Tommy’s imaginative and prescient for the album, so we made it work. I gave them loads of choices.”

Hearken to ‘Crash of the Crown’

Whereas they had been in a position to full a few of the recording previous to the onset of the pandemic, different items of the album needed to be accomplished remotely — which supplied some fringe advantages. Working from his house studio, vocalist and keyboardist Lawrence Gowan had entry to and was ready to make use of his Minimoog and Mellotron — and had already gotten an opportunity to make the most of Shaw’s Hammond B3 organ. “I bought the prospect to make use of some gear I by no means thought I’d have an opportunity to make use of on a Styx document,” he mentioned prematurely press supplies relating to the brand new album.

Listening to the gloriously prog rock leanings of songs just like the double shot of album opener “The Struggle of Our Lives” and “A Monster,” which musically, hearken delightfully again to the group’s ‘70s heyday, why not pull out a few of these archaeological sonic treasures and put them again into service?

“These sounds that individuals bought used to are nonetheless very, very related sounds. And so they nonetheless sound nice,” Shaw agrees, punctuating his subsequent level with a hearty chortle. “You realize, there have been some synthesizers again throughout that point that had a brief lifespan, greater than you acknowledged then. However we tried to keep away from these.”

Within the case of the B3, which Shaw acquired in recent times, it brings again reminiscences of 1 that was a part of the Styx household in earlier years, that he “used to have to assist carry up two flights of stairs in Chicago.”

Fortunately, he might simply get pleasure from its musical potential this time round. “I’ve been crankin’ it up and taking part in it and it’s bought a bit of bit older Leslie speaker that whenever you go in there and switch the amp up, it has that sound like Deep Purple and the Allman Brothers,” he says. “It’s a deal with and it’s good to have someone who can actually play it like Lawrence.”

Archival audio makes Winston Churchill the unlikely duet accomplice for Shaw on the anthemic “Save Us From Ourselves,” with a refrain that can get your toes tapping, “One nation / Indivisible / Heads within the sand / As a result of we weren’t invisible / Say your prayers / We might all use a miracle now / To avoid wasting us from ourselves.”

Sure sections of the lyrics for “Sound the Alarm,” then again, really feel acceptable for a universe of individuals navigating their method via a pandemic world, though they had been written previous to the onset of COVID. “There’s no future in the best way it was / We could by no means know simply what it was / But when tomorrow brings a greater day / Sound the alarm / It’s all clear.”

In reality, it’s simple to detect that thematically, the phrases of lots of the songs on this new album could be tied again to what Shaw and the members of Styx noticed growing right here at house in america politically. “What’s occurring round us and the way we really feel about it and the way it’s affecting us, we have to simply kind of say it out loud and put music to it,” he says. “Issues had been beginning to get sort of loopy. For a couple of years, the nation was beginning to get divided.”

Nonetheless, he factors out that Styx has by no means been a gaggle that “takes sides,” politically. “We’ve by no means been a protest band,” he says within the album’s liner notes. “We’re extra like a gospel caravan attempting to ship out constructive messages wherever we go.”

To that finish, going again to his Alabama roots, Shaw remembers going to church together with his household and discovering it troublesome to hearken to the “preacher droning on about stuff that I didn’t fairly perceive.” He discovered extra widespread floor with the gospel music tv reveals that had been ready for him when he arrived house from providers.

Particularly, the Gospel Singing Jubilee — and teams just like the Comfortable Goodman household, supplied messages that spoke to instances each good and dangerous, embedded with a way of hope. “There can be songs about issues perhaps tough proper now, however in the long run, the entire arms are outstretched and it’s going to be alright,” he says. “It was a easy message, however very highly effective.”

“That’s sort of all the time been a bit of little bit of a measuring stick that sort of comes out naturally for all of us,” he provides. “As a result of all of us had been raised up that method.”

Followers will get a style of the brand new materials from Crash of the Crown throughout the group’s present tour with Collective Soul. “We’ll begin out simple, as a result of you understand, there’s sure songs that we completely need to play and we like to play. However we’ll pepper in two, perhaps three [songs] throughout the night. And so they’ll be those which might be the simplest in all probability to grasp, so far as we’re involved. You realize, not one of the songs are tremendous lengthy. I believe individuals are going to love them, as a result of they sound like Styx songs.”