Legendary vocalist and musician Dennis DeYoung will release his final studio album, “26 East, Vol. 2” on June 11, 2021 via Frontiers Music Srl. Today Dennis presents the lyric video for “The Last Guitar Hero,” which features special guest guitarist Tom Morello. Watch the video HERE:
https://youtu.be/4rfL2jy7-Ic
Former Styx founding member Dennis DeYoung is back with the second volume of his fond farewell to recorded music, “26 East, Vol. 2.” As with the preceding volume, “26 East, Vol. 2” once again hints strongly at DeYoung’s rock roots with Styx. The production and musicianship are EPIC, and those timeless vocal arrangements get delivered in spades. A fitting goodbye and a final signature on an outstanding body of work which will stand the test of time.
Vol. 2 picks up where Vol. I left off, with DeYoung mining similar musical territory. With direct links to the classic Styx sound, as only he can provide, along with some straight ahead rock. The breadth of the album is illustrated on tracks like ‘The Last Guitar Hero’, with help from the Houdini of guitarists Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave), to two signature DeYoung ballads, ‘Your Saving Grace’ and ‘Made For Each Other’ to the piece de resistance, the first single, the ‘Isle of Misanthrope’, an eight minute masterpiece with a surprise finish.
DeYoung has previously stated that “26 East” will mark his retirement from the world of recorded music. It was thanks to Frontiers President and Head of A&R, Serafino Perugino, that given the abundance of material, Dennis agreed to split the album in two parts. This second half starts where the previous one left off and sees DeYoung collaborate again with fellow Chicagoan and Grammy Award winning songwriter Jim Peterik. The process that brought forth these two albums in the first place started when Peterik, DeYoung’s friend and neighbor, sent a song to Dennis that he thought would suit his vocals perfectly. That song became the catalyst for ten more collaborations from the pair, of which four appear on this new release.
“The last album was supposed to be my final album, but there were so many songs written that Serafino [Perugino] of Frontiers suggested dividing it into two albums rather than one,” DeYoung states.
“26 East” was the address where DeYoung grew up in Roseland, IL on the far south side of Chicago. Across the street lived the Panozzo twins, John and Chuck, who along with DeYoung would go on to form the nucleus of Styx in DeYoung’s basement in 1962.
