Man of Miracle Grow
Overall Album Score: 6.9 out of 10 The MAN! And his MIRACLES! He can do all THINGS! Except give Styx a better ALBUM! Because it SUCKS! AGAIN! ...Dudes... I think it's time for a new wizard. Seriously. He doesn't help you much. Really. Okay, for all practical purposes of the matter, Man of Miracle Grow is equal to Serpent is Pooping! They both received nearly the same score! Yeah! So they're nearly equal! (I love my freaking quantitative analysis!) ... Why does every sentence in this paragraph have an exclamation mark at the end of it?! ...Sorry, I had to get out of that paragraph. Now what was I doing... Oh yes, Styx is a band of doodieheads. Okay, not really, but they're not a band of intellectuals. (Seriously, it's the fourth album, and you didn't gather this ... yeah. I feel sorry for you!) With Man of Miracles Styx appears to be going a little bit off the path of progressive rock and going for more of that ROCK feel. (...or, perhaps, getting closer to this AOR thing...). Supertramp sort of did the same thing with their Mammary Gland album ... except that album was actually decent! Styx still exhibit their general feebleness here with their songwriting and lyrical triteness ... yeah ... If you're a Styx fan, then seriously stop. It ain't doin' yew no guud. Overall Album Score: 6.9 out of 10 (A slight improvement over The Serpent is Rising ... but ... who's counting? They're both smelly!) Average Song Score: 7.3 (They're still not so good ... the songs range from kind of awesome rock to dang crapfully dull progressive rock! Ew!) Album Tilt: 7.0 (...Yeah, again, Styx are at least congruent with these freaking albums.) Artist Rating: 6.5 (I'm taking an extra half-point away here than I would have. ... They really needed to work on these songs some more. ... Either giving them better melodies, or polishing the songs or, preferably, both. ... NOT an artistic achievement at all.) Track Reviews Rock & Roll Feeling 7.5/10 ...Not bad... The song is what it promises to be ... a song about rock-and-roll ... and, yeah, and it's all ROCKING and stuff. Can't be bad ... can't be bad ... The instrument-playing is spot-on, fortunately, and ... the vocal performance sounds like good old AOR/crap rock. Havin' a Ball 8/10 This song has a really nice groove ... sounds kinda glammy to me! ... I guess that would be consistent with this band's freaking pompous attitude. The only thing keeping this song from being good is that there are no real hooks in the melody! THAT'S KIND OF IMPORTANT, YOU KNOW!!!!! But this is an altogether good Styx rock song. Golden Lark 7.5/10 This is a would-be moving ballad. It seems to have a nice enough melody and ... the instrumentation is pretty good, too ... but it just isn't moving! They should have WORKED ON IT MORE OR SOMETHING!!! ... Maybe it's the production that's totally lacking, I don't know. That Dennis DeYoung is a total geek. A Song For Suzanne 8/10 ...And I'm sure Suzanne appreciates it ... Oh yeah. Here, we start seeing Styx's own brand of overproduction blooming! ... Not that I don't appreciate Styx's own brand of overproduction. If your songs aren't that good, you had might as well over produce it! ... I just want to know why "Golden Lark" wasn't so overproduced! ... Well, what can I say? I like this song! It takes too long for it to get started, but when it does, we get some goofy Styx-pop the way we know best ... A Man Like Me 7/10 Ew. Finally Styx launch a misfire! ... Although, it's another song about rock-and-roll. ... It's not about freaking wizards or people who are depressed or some chick. ... But ... CRAP, this thing is just a big piece of POOP! (Although, the spirit's nice ... I'll grant it that.) Lies 8.5/10 Again, this isn't an altogether terrible rock song. ... They would have had a long way to go if they wanted to be genuine rockers, but ... this is Styx. They would have sucked at that, too. But ... alas ... the melody is good and all that generic instrumentation is freakin' kickin'. Evil Eyes 6.5/10 Another misfire! (What's with this on-and-off quality of these Styx albums? Is it all in my head!) ... It manages to pick up a little momentum as the song goes past its two minute mark but ... it's already half over by then. Southern Woman 7.5/10 This isn't an all-in-all horrible ROCK song ... but ... uhhhh ... it's generic just like all the other freaking rock songs in here. Bluh. Christopher, Mr. Christopher 7/10 ...I believe the band name you're looking for is "Mister Mister," but this is close! ... And this is more like a regular old Styx song as opposed to a ROCK song. ... Not that such a thing is necessarily horrible. ... They're not phenomenally great at doing either one of those things! The song passes overall because the melody is ... okay. It's not exactly a fun song to sit through, nor is it "intellectually rewarding." (Not that I was actually expecting anything "intellectually rewarding.") Man of Miracles 5/10 Man ... that whole wizard guy that appears on the album cover just came back to me ... why on Earth was he on there, anyway? This is the only song that could warrant such a freaking geeky drawing! This was a rock album more than a stupid geek-progressive rock album like everybody and their mothers thought it would be by glancing at that freaking album cover. ... This is the only real GEEK progressive rock song! ... And ... it totally sucks. I like to compliment Styx sometimes on their instrumental skills ... but that obviously doesn't apply here. Horrid, horrid instrumentation throughout most of the song! (That synth instrumental passage works okay, but ... ew! That's a synth instrumental passage and that's the best part of the song!) And the melody is poop. 'Tis a horrid way to end the album!! Perform a miracle and send me an awesome comment pertaining to your thoughts of the album here! |
All reviews are copyrighted by Michael Lawrence. I WAS IN THE POOL!
