The word is that Dennis De Young and Tommy Shaw – the Lennon and McCartney of Styx – will be getting together soon. Music lovers everywhere can only hope this is the first tentative step toward a full-blown Styx reunion – not because there are all that many pressing musical questions left unanswered from the Kilroy Was Here days but simply because if the boys in the band were to abandon their solo careers and join forces, it would probably mean less total SRP (Styx-Related Product). As for Boomchild, it's just a grating slab of boy-I-wish-I-still-had-an-auditorium-to-play-in rock that suggests that De Young has – to paraphrase one of those forgettable smashes from the Styx oeuvre – too much time on his hands. (RS 548)

DAVID WILD