September 1, 1978 - Pieces Of Eight and Renegade

Two weeks since my last release I have my fourth single song in a row! A year after "The Grand Illusion" Styx released their eighth album "Pieces Of Eight" on September 1, 1978. I only have one song off this newest album, but as I usually say this is a good one, another successful single called "Renegade". It has Tommy Shaw on lead vocals and this song has a slow and very epic opening as Shaw sings and all we hear is a light bass drum. Dennis DeYoung joins him for the last couple lines and with a yell the song kicks into gear! "The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me!" They surge into a new hard rock riff that sounds pretty sweet and Shaw's singing is quite good as well. James Young plays some cool lead guitar as they move from the chorus to the first verse. DeYoung plays some cool backing synths and after the second chorus Young starts shredding his guitar and begins a solo! He continues to play some really awesome stuff in this solo and it segues right into some very loud and epic synths. They repeat the first few lines of the song but this time singing at full force with John Panozzo keeping the beat on drums. They bring it back to the chorus one last time and DeYoung keeps up his cool keyboard riff for a bit longer as we hear some more excellent guitar by Young at the finish. It slowly fades to a close but this ending is pretty solid as well. They struck gold again with this hit but it's finally time to get back to some full albums!

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