Stone of Sisphus (XXXII) - Chicago

Back in the early 90's I was a big Chicago fan. They had kind of moved past the ballady stuff they had in the mid 80's, and became an interesting band again. However, they were still mostly dominated by the ballad. So after Chicago 21 in 1991, the band issued a statement saying they wanted to move away from that kind of music, they wanted to do something new, something they really "wanted to do". So they started work on what became this album. However, the record label didn't like it. The entire story is fairly convoluted, but the band and the record label didn't see eye to eye, so the band said "F it", and took their record and didn't deliver it, or the label refused to release it (depending on who you talk to) Either way, it never came out. As the years passed, and more albums came out, Sisyphys became something of a legend. The band refused to talk about it, the tracks were never released, and it was widely bootlegged.

I had a copy of this for a long time, and realy did enjoy it. It was rather experimental, didn't sound like "usual Chicago". In early Spring of 2008, I was rather shocked to see it on the coming list from Rhino records. This was cool, because the boot I had was "OK", but it's never the same as a cleaned up version, properly released. On top of that, the official release has four demo versions of tracks. I didn't listen closely to see if they were bootleg versions or not. Additionally, there's one track that remains from the bootleg that is not on the final version, so it's not 100% completed, but that's a nitpick, really.

The album is great. It still sounds like "Chicago", but not like any traditional Chicago sound. There's a lot more funk and bass in this recording. Several tracks are quite awesome. Thing is, it's probably not for everyone. While I really like the recording, it has that feel of "acquired taste". If you're a Chicago fan though, you probably would like it. Take a shot.