This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
“I’m waiting for our time to come,” says Styx’s Tommy Shaw. Hope he’s patient — it’s going to be a while before 1975 comes around again.
Thankfully, Tommy, James Young and their classic-rock compadres have found a few interesting ways to pass the time on the latest inconsequential album Cyclorama. Embedded amid the usual slate of forgettable, third-rate retro-rock cheese are a couple of nifty little vignettes — a 50-second country-metal oddity called Bourgeois Pig, with Billy Bob Thornton on vocals; and a 40-second return to Fooling Yourself, featuring gorgeous backup vocals by none other than Brian Wilson. If they ain’t weird enough, here’s something even stranger: An honest-to-Cheap Trick power-pop gem in the snotty, adrenalized Kiss Your Ass Goodbye. If they took these three tracks and used them as the blueprint for their next album, their time just might come around again.
