The Serpent is Rising (1973)

Looking back, I think this record was the kind of gold I was hoping to find when I embarked on this project. (“This project” being a deep-dive into the career of a band that, in my teen years, I grew to loathe, out of punk orthodoxy more than anything.)

Anyway, without further ado, ladies, gents, and non-binary classic-rock fans (both of you), here is the third Styx album: the gloriously titled The Serpent is Rising.

Doers of sordid deeds, indeed

If you’re going to call an album The Serpent is Rising, you’d better start with a hazy, hash-y rocker. And this record gets off to just such a start with “Witch Wolf.”

Here are the opening lyrics:

Reoccurring symptoms
Answer the baleful howl
Bringing me dreams of darkness
The doer of all that’s foul
Raping the minds of infants
Sower of unplanted seeds
Full moon warrior
Doer of sordid deeds

There’s no real change in sound from the previous two albums—the guitars are a little grittier, maybe? And the band is still making flakey detours into keyboard fairy-land.

In the “Hey Styx, Al Stewart called and he wants his lyric-book back department,” we have the next song. “The Grove of Eglantine” is one of those ambitious multi-part epics that the band is becoming so fond of at this stage of its career. Pompous as hell but kind of fun, which is how I would describe Styx at its most listenable I suppose. “Eglantine” is a kind of rose.

“Young Man”—Uh oh, title warning. What does Styx have to say on the subject of being a “young man” in 1974? The lyrics scan like a Village People rewrite of “Young Man Blues.” This is ’70s black-light basement listening distilled to its purest form—the “shatter” version, if you will. Also there is a reference to “every synapse in your soul” which I don’t think was a thing, even in ’74.

“As Bad As This”—This is another contribution from keyboardist John Curulewski, who wrote what are easily the two worst songs on Styx II. Here, he reaches a new low, with an acoustic guitar come-down ballad that, without warning (and believe me, you want a warning for this one) morphs into a calypso track about plexi-glass toilets. The latter half will make you miss the first half, which is really saying something.

“Winner Takes All”—No, not the ABBA song (you wish!). This one starts with “Day in the Life” keyboards and raises the serpent with zingy ’70s arena-rock optimism. Not a good song by any stretch but it’s a nice return to trying to reach the cheap seats. Lead vocalist James Young lets out a convincing howl, too.

“22 Years”—Some groovy riffage and a basic rock ‘n’ roll tune. Another Curulewski song. Filler, but not painful. (The title comes from the fact that it took “22 years” for the singer to find his “crazy lovin’ mama.” Why you would call a song “22 Years” instead of “Crazy Lovin’ Mama” is beyond my powers of comprehension.) There is a whiff of Allman Brothers to this one. Yes, there is cowbell.

“Jonas Psalter”—What do they want, bonus points for a song title with a silent “p”? The title character is a pirate captain in this nutty tune that sets sail on the hard-rock seas of the 1970s. I hesitate to use the word “love” in relation to my feelings about this band, but I come closest when Styx just lets its freak-flag fly. Again, not a good song by any stretch, but fun if you’re in the right mood. (Spoiler alert: things don’t end well for Psalter.) Can the band resist ending the song with an elegiac organ outro? Of course not.

“The Serpent is Rising”—Admit it, as soon as you saw the album title you thought, “Christ, I hope there’s a title track.” Well, you’re in luck. Is it good? Does it matter? All you need to know, dear reader, is that the lyrics are pure Conan (the Barbarian, not the talk-show host). As you hoped they would be. If this song didn’t inspire Spinal Tap‘s “Stonehenge,” then I’d love to hear what did. (I was nine the year this album was released. If my babysitter brought this record over to play on my parents’ console turntable—a scenario that is within the realm of possibility—I would have hidden under my bed for weeks.)

“Krakatoa/Hallelujah Chorus”—The first part of this is a spoken-word rant about the volcano, Krakatoa, which erupted in 1883. Another Curulewski track. The second part is, indeed, from Handel’s Messiah. Is this the right way to end an album called The Serpent is Rising? Is there a wrong way?

Facts about The Serpent is Rising

• the band’s label, Wooden Nickel, released Serpent a mere three months after Styx II. At this point, the band is still without a hit, although “Lady” (from Styx II—see my review here) is destined to soon change the band’s fortunes.

• Wiki says that “The Grove of Eglantine” is “about a woman’s vagina.” Of course it is.

• Curulewski also wrote the title track. So I take back everything I have said about his songwriting.

• “Krakatoa” features what Wiki calls “an ending glissando” taken from a 1970 track called “Spaced” by a duo called Beaver & Krause. If you really want to go down a rabbit-hole, check out the Beaver & Krause Wiki page.

• the “Plexiglass Toilet” half of “As Bad As This” isn’t really the second half of anything but is its own thing, a hidden track. (Take that, Clash!) Weird Al picked it for a Rolling Stone clickbait piece, “5 Songs to Scare the Neighbours“: “It’s a jaunty little calypso number told from the perspective of a caring mother who admonishes her son not to sit down on a Plexiglass toilet, and also that he should ‘wipe his butt clean with the paper, to make it nice for everyone,'” he told the magazine.

• writer Bob Koch, quoting Sterling Whitaker‘s 2006 bioThe Grand Delusion: The Unauthorized True Story of Styx (damn, there goes my idea for my next book project!), says that band member Dennis DeYoung “indirectly” called The Serpent is Rising “one of the worst recorded and produced [albums] in the history of music.”

• in his piece on the album, Koch also mentions Deep Purple and the Moody Blues as, er, inspiration for some of the tracks on this record.