posted 04-21-2017 06:14 PM               

"The Mission" is an aurally adventurous 43-minute thrill ride that chronicles the trials, tribulations, and ultimate triumphs of the first manned mission to Mars in the year 2033.

From the hopeful drive of "Gone Gone Gone" to the stargazing machinations of "Locomotive" to the rough-riding blaze of glory that permeates the hard-charging "Red Storm" to the elegiac optimism of the closing track "Mission to Mars," the album succeeds in delivering the greater good from a band that continues to fire on all cylinders, 45 years after signing its first recording contract.

...the new music was created to reflect the viewpoint of the six-person crew enlisted for the maiden voyage of Khedive, the first entry in a new fleet of nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft underwritten by the Global Space Exploration Program (or GSEP, for short). The Khedive team consists of The Pilot, a fully hands-on, seat-of-the-pants born leader; a First Officer who serves as the team's big-brother figure; an Engineer who is skeptical of every phase of the mission but remains confident in his own abilities to make the best of any technical situation; and a Top-Shelf Trio of science, astrophysics, and survivalist experts.

The CD is also available with a signed booklet from Newbury Comics.

Styx's Tommy Shaw (vocals, guitar), Lawrence Gowan (vocals, keyboard), and Todd Sucherman (drums) toured the New Horizons mission control in 2015 in light of their band sharing a name with Pluto's smallest moon.

A video for the first single off of "The Mission," titled "Gone, Gone, Gone," premiered on Billboard.com on Friday (April 21) and can be viewed here: