After several months of teasers, including some secretive Morse code messages, Styx have announced their upcoming 17th studio album, Crash of the Crown.

Styx will release the new album on June 18. It will be available on clear vinyl, black vinyl, CD and digital platforms. It's available for preorder on the band's website now.

A press release describes Crash of the Crown as a "modern-day sonic chronograph of the endless regenerative cycle of the rise and fall — and rise again — of our shared human experience."

The band is previewing Crash of the Crown with the title track, which you can hear below.

Crash of the Crown comes just four years after the release of Styx's last album, The Mission, which was their first record of all-new material since 2003's Cyclorama.

The Mission is a sincere and honest representation of how Styx built upon where we were in the 20th century in order to go somewhere new in the 21st century," cofounding bassist Chuck Panozzo said at the time. Panozzo, who has played with Styx on a part-time basis since 1999, lends his four-string talents to two Crash of the Crown songs: "Our Wonderful Lives” and “Lost at Sea." The band has not shared the full track listing for the album yet.

Last summer, singer and guitarist Tommy Shaw had hinted that a new album was nearly ready and coming soon. "We've got all the drums, we've got all the basses [recorded]," he told the Ted Nugent Spirit Campfire show. "I think I've done all my guitars. I've done most of my vocals. ... We were writing and writing and writing. I got to the end of it. I had this other song. I was just burnt out. I was, like, 'I can't finish this song.' So I kind half-assed finished it. So I've gotta go in and do it right."

Styx will also release two additional songs, "The Same Stardust" and "Age of Entropia," that will be exclusively available on translucent blue vinyl along with five live performances from the recent "Styx Fix" livestreams for the first installment of Record Store Day on June 12. (The other will take place on July 17.)

Ongoing coronavirus concerns notwithstanding, Styx should get to test some Crash of the Crown songs on the road soon. They're set to embark on a U.S. tour with Collective Soul on June 16, and in September, they'll play three consecutive nights at the Venetian Theatre in Las Vegas.

 

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