Styx
Equinox
1975
A&M Records
Equinox is a very pertinent musical adventure. From cover to track-list, it is an album that sticks out (unlike a sore thumb) in Styx's discography. 1975 was still a decent year for progressive rock, but at the same time similarly being around the peak of the industries career. The true identity and greatness of Styx weaves all the way back to around '73, but a culmination of debut era sound and a more mature skill-set came a wonderful product for the ages. Remember, this was before the 80's Styx, who's synthetic commercialization was extremely forthright and seemed almost prideful to show to world. Equinox was a symbol of a more honest era, where instruments like synthesizers were modest and used in the right places instead of being sprawled out willy-nilly. Perhaps my favorite tracks on the album come from the fantastic juxtaposition of black-face progressive rock and the heavy metal/hard rock that Styx started to develop as the 70's went on. A very understandable comparison has been made between this album and Kansas' music (circa. Masque), which is very understandable. But while Kansas is very upfront about their symphonics, Styx utilizes both that and proto-metal 70's hard rock (which was stated before). For those neigh-sayers who enjoy saying that Styx if very light with the prog then I urge you to listen to Equinox.
If you have already, well, do it again.
© 2015 - The Frying Pan & Thatcher
Originally written for Prog Archives on 11/8/2015.
Visit the site at www.progarchives.com
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