Styx: The Serpent is Rising (1973)
Styx’s third long-player, The Serpent is Rising, was allegedly a quasi-concept album, but the fact that no one – not even the band itself – seems to remember precisely what that concept was, pretty much sums up its bad reputation.
By default, Serpent has become an easy target for phallic jokes of the Spinal Tap variety -- not least because its songs represent the Chicago band’s early progressive rock influences at their most uninspired and chaotic, frequently divorced from any compositional common sense.
First track, “Witch Wolf,” with its patented James ‘JY’ Young almost-metal, is also its best, and the John Curulewski-penned title track a distant second; but beyond these two, Styx generally stitches half-baked prog/pomp/classical ideas together with reckless abandon.
For example: they toss a needless bolero into “Young Man,” unwisely name a song “As Bad as This” (come on!), follow the Satan-invoking robotic sermon of “Krakatoa” with Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” and on the grandly named “The Grove of Eglantine,” the normally impeccably well-mannered Dennis DeYoung calls some poor damsel “a wicked wench.”
Dennis, how could you?!
But the straw that broke this serpent’s back (sorry) was a hidden track bearing the perplexing title of “Plexiglass Toilet,” which essentially consists of a laughable version of Harry Belafonte’s calypso standard “Day-O.”
For all these sins, I called The Serpent is Rising an all-time low and ranked it among the worst from Styx’s vintage era discography in Ultimate Classic Rock.
But, what can I say? Some albums are so fascinatingly terrible, you have to find some room for them in your collection.
More Styx: Styx, Styx II, Man of Miracles, Equinox, Crystal Ball, The Grand Illusion, Pieces of Eight, Paradise Theatre, Kilroy was Here, Caught in the Act - Live.
