Enjoying Styx is apparently frowned upon by many American rock aficionados. Fortunately, I am European, and I don’t give a damn. In fact, the band deserves a fair amount of respect in my book for not just being a nostalgia-driven legacy act as they could have done – and as so many of their peers are doing. They appeared to go that way for a while, but ‘Circling from Above’ is Styx’ third studio album since 2017, and like the two albums before it, it shows the band aging gracefully instead of desperately holding on to the sound that made them a household name.

To be fair, all the elements that people will associate with Styx are present on ‘Circling from Above’. Exploring all the possibilities that having three lead singers and multiple layers of backing vocals offers is an important part of the Styx sound, the way the guitars and the keyboards interact is not too dissimilar from their biggest successes, and the band clearly knows how to write a good chorus. Overall though, ‘Circling from Above’ sounds a lot less slick and bombastic than the band used to sound. Like on 2021’s ‘Clash of the Crown’, Styx carves a nice, classy progressive pop niche for themselves here.

Stylistically, ‘Circling from Above’ sounds reasonably similar to ‘Clash of the Crown’, though I do think the songs sound more finished this time around. The songs are similarly brief – none of them exceeding the four-minute mark – but those on ‘Clash of the Crown’ had a tendency to end rather abruptly. That may have been an artistic choice, but to my ears, the songs on ‘Circling from Above’ unfold and wrap up in a much more natural way. While it would have been nice to have one or two more epic tracks on here, Styx anno 2025 is very clearly not about musical excess.

My favorite song is the absolutely gorgeous ‘Michigan’, which is probably the most modern-sounding track here. Despite its fairly subdued nature, it has a distinct alternative rock vibe that I suspect producer-turned-guitarist Will Evankovich is responsible for. Other highlights include the spritely folkrocker ‘Blue Eyed Raven’, the elegant proggy poprocker ‘It’s Clear’, the theatrical builder ‘The Things That You Said’, and the latter-day Beatles-esque ‘She Knows’. Also, for an AOR-adjacent band, I have always found Styx’ post-‘The Grand Illusion‘ ballads to be relatively weak, which is why the beautifully arranged, George Harrison-ish ‘Forgive’ took me by complete surprise.

Despite liking the song, I’m not entirely sure if ‘Build and Destroy’ was the best choice for the album’s first single. It gives the impression that the album is a bit more proggy – in a transitional-era Genesis sort of way – than it actually is. Maybe the fun rootsrocker ‘We Lost the Wheel Again’ would have been a better choice. As it stands, though, ‘Circling from Above’ is an excellent, carefully crafted progressive pop/rock album that is better than one would reasonably expect Styx to be at this point in their career. But that’s what you get with multiple good singers and songwriters all sharing a common goal.

Recommended tracks: ‘Michigan’, ‘Blue Eyed Raven’, ‘It’s Clear’