Hear Styx’s Second ‘The Mission’ Single, ‘Radio Silence’
Styx continue counting down to liftoff with their new The Mission LP via the release of the set's second single, "Radio Silence."
The arrival of "Radio Silence" comes in the midst of the band's pre-release campaign for the album, which will end a 14-year drought between full-length studio collections when it arrives on June 16. The group's label is currently soliciting fans to tweet their local stations in support of the single, with a deluxe merchandise pack being awarded to select contest winners. That deluxe bundle is just one of several being offered as pre-order options at Styx's online store, but many are already sold out — a reflection of the pent-up demand for new material among the fan base.
"Radio Silence" makes its debut a little more than a month after The Mission's first single, "Gone Gone Gone," which was released alongside Styx's announcement of the new LP. As guitarist and singer Tommy Shaw told Ultimate Classic Rock, the record's songs serve a concept, peering into the future to tell the story of the first manned mission to Mars in 2033 — a return to the group's prog-tinged roots that was sealed with his fond memories of spacing out to his favorite classic-rock acts.
"I loved Alan Parsons and the people who made records like that where there was a lot of stuff going on, [like] Pink Floyd and [others]," he explained. "I could not wait to go home and smoke a little bud, put those headphones on and just take a trip. A trip that I was part of. You know, I had kind of orchestrated what I could do to make it interesting when you had the headphones on. That was very important to us to do that on this record. There is a 5.1 surround mix of this record that is really something — I mean, if you think this is a trip, then that’s the one."
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