The Kansas Discography Thread - THAT'S ALL, FOLKS (For Now)

[hefdaddy42]

FREAKS OF NATURE (1995)



“Floods of memories came back to me
All the things we got away with when we were younger”

1.   I Can Fly (Ragsdale, Walsh)               5:21
2.   Desperate Times (Walsh)               5:25
3.   Hope Once Again (Walsh)               4:34
4.   Black Fathom 4 (Ragsdale, Walsh)            5:54
5.   Under the Knife (Ragsdale, Walsh)            4:54
6.   Need (Walsh)                     3:59
7.   Freaks of Nature (Ragsdale, Walsh, Ehart)         5:05
8.   Cold Grey Morning (Livgren)               4:14
9.   Peaceful and Warm (Walsh)               6:44

The current lineup of the band had been continuing to tour, but they decided to make another go at writing and recording an album of new material.  This would be David Ragsdale’s first studio album with the band, which meant two important things:
1.   A return to the original sonic template of three melodic instruments (guitar, keys, violin)
2.   A return to writing progressive rock music.

For some reason, the band went to Trinidad to record the album.  Maybe it was the island air, I don’t know, but something made the inner prog come back out from the band, and they delivered a good album.

The first track, “I Can Fly”, opens with some interesting intertwining of guitar, key, and violin in almost a counterpoint.  Walsh’s vocals soar, and there are appropriately wonderful twists and turns throughout.  The opener is a prog rocker of the first degree, almost venturing into prog metal at several points.  An extremely satisfying opener.

“Desperate Times” is another high-energy rocker with fantastic musicianship.  Lots of interesting passages, including a drum solo passage that doesn’t suck, and Ragsdale sounds fantastic.

Next is “Hope Once Again”, a ballad featuring keyboard and violin in prominent roles.  Nothing too out of the ordinary, but it has a wonderful melody line, and Ragsdale again plays a major role.

“Black Fathom 4” has a sinister feel and a sinister lyric, as well.  This is a rarely seen side of Kansas, but it works to great effect here.  It is a little more straightforward than some of the other pieces on this album, but it does not fail to deliver.

“Under the Knife” is another song with a little more straightforward structure, a medium-tempo piece.  I’m not sure what it is about lyrically, but it is a compelling song with great melodies.

“Need” is another ballad.  Not much to tell here, probably the weak point of the album, but not bad.

“Freaks of Nature” has a high-energy intro, which matches the “choruses” of the songs.  These passages feature syncopated runs that sound almost like something that Dream Theater might write (same with the extended instrumental section of the song).  Phil Ehart is fantastic on this song.  I love this song, so much going on, so many tasty pieces.  It’s one of those songs that you can pick up different things on every listen.

The next track is a songwriting contribution from Kerry Livgren, who although not a current member of the band was still “in the family.”  “Cold Grey Morning” is another cool mid-tempo track, with interesting lyrics, nice vocal delivery from Walsh, and Ragsdale shining once again.

The album closes out with “Peaceful and Warm”, which starts out as an acoustic ballad accented by violin, somewhat reminiscent (structurally, anyway) of “Dust in the Wind”.  It is a wonderfully intimate performance, with evocative lyrics, and does a good job of cleansing the pallet.  Until the second half of the song, when it morphs into something else altogether  – an uplifting, majestic instrumental piece, which once more shows the fantastic musicianship of this incredible band. 

I must say that I absolutely LOVE this album.  Coming in at a concise 45:14 length, it is a return to the form that Kansas showed in earlier albums, albeit with a little heavier edge than most of their previous work.  In my opinion, this is Kansas’s finest album since Point of Know Return.  For me, the two stars of the album are Dave Ragsdale and Phil Ehart.  I’ve already sang Ragsdale’s praises a lot here, but Ehart is a beast on this album.  I cannot recommend this one highly enough.

However, Freaks of Nature met with little success.  Two edited singles were released (“Desperate Times” and “Hope Once Again”), but neither made the chart.  The album as a whole didn’t make the album chart, either, which makes this album, as much as I like it, the first Kansas release not to appear on any Billboard chart.  It’s a shame, really.  After a time of wandering, the band had apparently gotten everything together again, but were unable to reap the rewards they deserved.

[King Postwhore]

Loved this album and saw them on this tour. I Can Fly & Under the Knife are my favorites.

[Podaar]

I wanted to listen to this album during the week in preparation for this post but wasn't able to find the time. [edit]remove excuses[/edit]

I'll see about getting that remedied this weekend.

[Orbert]

I had no idea.  I'd given up on Kansas long before this album came out, and I don't think I've ever listened to it.  I will try to remedy that.

[KevShmev]

I turned 22 on July 13, 1995, and on that day, several friends and I went to see Kansas at Union Station downtown, back when KSHE-95 would have several free concerts there a year - we also saw Foghat and Blue Oyster Cult there for free around the same time period.  I believe this was not long after I had gotten into the band, so I was eager to see them play all of that great 70s material that had gotten me into the band, and while they did play a bunch of that, they also played four new songs: Desperate Times, Under the Knife, Black Fathom 4 and Hope Once Again.  I thought they were all great, and I immediately went out and bought the Freaks of Nature CD, which I quickly became a big fan of.  Every song was good, and most of them were really good.

The following year when I saw on the Kansas/Styx co-headlining tour (which was also Styx's Return to Paradise comeback tour), they played Hope Once Again and I Can Fly, so they didn't immediately abandon songs from this record live. Sadly, like you said, hef, the lack of sales for this record weren't good, which is a shame because it is a darn good record. 

Notable, too, is that while Steve Walsh's voice still sounds good, the effect of years of smoking cigarettes is clear from the start here.  He sounds pretty strained on that opening passage of I Can Fly, making it clear from the start that Steve Walsh's voice was forever-damaged, but his vocals are still an asset on this record.

David Ragsdale's solo in Hope Once Again is one of the best solos of any kind of a Kansas studio album, IMO.  And the guitar solo that follows it is pretty great, too.

[King Postwhore]

Crap, that's right,  I saw them with Styz first then with Kansas and that was at a small venue.

[KevShmev]

I'm not even sure if the Kansas/Styx co-headlining thing lasted for the whole tour.  I suspect promoters underestimated the allure of that comeback Styx tour, but the following year, Styx was headlining all by themselves and our outdoor venue here was still pretty packed for them (Pat Benatar was the opener for that tour). 

Those remain the only two times I've seen Kansas.

[hefdaddy42]

I had no idea.  I'd given up on Kansas long before this album came out, and I don't think I've ever listened to it.  I will try to remedy that.

Curious to hear your thoughts on it!

[Big Hath]

Crap, that's right,  I saw them with Styz first then with Kansas and that was at a small venue.

I'm curious to hear more about Styz!

[King Postwhore]

Crap, that's right,  I saw them with Styz first then with Kansas and that was at a small venue.

I'm curious to hear more about Styz!

They were hip.  Fo Shizil

[Orbert]

I had no idea.  I'd given up on Kansas long before this album came out, and I don't think I've ever listened to it.  I will try to remedy that.

Curious to hear your thoughts on it!

I've listened to the first half so far.  Not bad!  I do like the return to "the Kansas sound" with the violin in there mixing it up with the keyboards and guitar, although I personally would stop short of calling it prog.  Better than pop, certainly rock with some real chops, but not quite full-blown prog in the traditional sense.  But then, no two people in the world agree what "prog" is anyway, so if it's prog to you, then cool.  It's still basic 4/4 stuff with a solid backbeat.  No ventures into odd meters, contrasting movements within songs, etc.  But definitely better than your garden variety pop dreck, and reminiscent of early Kansas.

Kev's right, though, in that Walsh's voice is pretty ghastly.  "I Can Fly" musically is very cool, but man, Walsh sounds like he's straining the entire time.  He just doesn't have the strength in the upper register anymore.  He actually sounds better on some of the next few tracks, so I'm guessing they chose the opener because it comes out of the gate firing on all four, but wow, the voice caught my attention right away, and not in a good way.

I was listening in my car, half deaf on the way home from band practice.  I'll check out the rest, then give the whole thing another spin.

[KevShmev]

Not to pull a Kotowboy by jumping ahead , but the opening vocal section of Icarus II also has a few notes that are kinda painful to listen to.

And I tried watching the There's Know Place Like Home DVD at a friend's about a month ago, but after several songs, we had to turn it off thanks to how terrible Walsh sounded.  What a shame that a guy who in his prime was as good as anybody ever, has fallen so far.

[Orbert]

Okay, upon a second listen, and most of a third, I take it back.  There's definitely some prog going on in here.  I guess I was so blown away by Walsh's voice that I completely forgot about everything from about 3 minutes on in "I Can Fly".  Cool stuff.  Nice cut right to "Desperate Times" as the follow-up; almost no break (on my iPod, anyway).  "Hope Once Again" was okay, but not quite my thing.  Things picked back up again with "Black Fathom 4" and "Under the Knife".  "Need" was a little meh, but not horrible I guess.  Basically, my thoughts on pretty much everything echo yours (Hef).  The thing at the end of "Peaceful and Warm" caught me off guard.  I only glanced through your track-specific comments before, to avoid spoilers.  Very cool, and a great way to end the album.

It's too bad.  This album should've been the great Kansas comeback.  A return to form, and (mostly) a return to their original sound.  The only thing missing is the amazing two-part vocal harmonies of Walsh and Steinhardt, or just Robbie's voice, which was a nice contrast to Steve's and great in its own right.  I always loved that about early Kansas, and felt that it really helped emphasize their Folk roots.  But you can't have everything.  I suspect that most longtime Kansas fans had given up on them by this point.  I didn't know anyone who'd even heard the album, so there was no one to tell me "Hey, this is really good stuff, very much like the early sound."  Until now, so thanks for turning me on to this!  ♫♫

[hefdaddy42]

 

[KevShmev]

Glad you're liking it, Orbert!

Really, me getting into was just luck as far as getting into them when I did and just happening to see them when they were playing some of the Freaks of Nature material.  Had it been years later, given the average reviews of it, I might not have bothered.

[Podaar]

I had a chance to have a multi-task type listen yesterday and really enjoyed having it on. "Hope Once Again" and "Black Fathom 4" really jumped out at me, but that could have been more because of the task I was doing at the time allowed me to keep more of an ear available. While having it on, there were several moments that demanded my attention in a good way: "...whoa, that's cool."

I'm looking forward to having a proper listen!

[hefdaddy42]

Bonus mid-week selection!


ALWAYS NEVER THE SAME (1998)



“Lay my heart besides your soul
Don't let the tears blur the vision in your eyes”

1.   Eleanor Rigby (Lennon, McCarthy)            3:22
2.   Dust in the Wind (Livgren)               4:01
3.   Preamble (Baird)                  3:25
4.   Song For America (Livgren)               9:15
5.   In Your Eyes (Walsh)                  4:30
6.   Miracles Out of Nowhere (Livgren)            6:27
7.   Hold On (Livgren)                  4:18
8.   The Sky is Falling (Walsh)               7:50
9.   Cheyenne Anthem (Livgren)               7:29
10.   Prelude & Introduction (Kansas, Baird)            4:53
11.   The Wall (Livgren, Walsh)               5:29
12.   Need to Know (Walsh)                  4:02
13.   Nobody’s Home (Livgren, Walsh)            6:04

Through late 1997 to early 1998, the band recorded a new project called Always Never the Same with the London Symphony Orchestra.  The recording was done at Abbey Road Studios in London with director/composer Larry Baird.

The album is largely a set of covers of previous songs, along with new songs “In Your Eyes”, “The Sky is Falling”, and “Need to Know”.  There is also a composition by Baird called “Prelude”, which serves as an intro for “Song For America,” as well as a piece called “Prelude & Introduction” which is a medley of various Kansas songs.  The band also did a cover of “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles, the first cover to appear on a Kansas recording since the debut album (J.J. Cale’s “Bringing It Back”).

In my opinion, the classic Kansas songs featured on this release lend themselves well to this format.  The orchestra works well with these prog compositions.  My personal favorites are “Dust in the Wind”, “Song For America”, and “The Wall”.  Also, a song that normally doesn’t do much for me, “Cheyenne Anthem”, comes across very well with this accompaniment (so naturally, you guys that already love this one will probably hate it lol).

“In Your Eyes” is a good, uplifting song, and the orchestra works well with the composition, while allowing the band to shine through on this new piece.  I like it quite a bit, and it isn’t dependent on the orchestra; it would be a good song on its own.

“The Sky is Falling” opens with an orchestral flourish, but then descends into a fairly pedestrian rocker.  The orchestral contributions after the intro seem out of place, as the song is a blues and riff based rocker, and in the middle of the song it switches mood again to an almost triumphant symphonic instrumental section.  This song can’t figure out what it wants to be.

“Prelude & Introduction” is a really cool medley of themes from various other Kansas songs not featured on this recording.  It’s not something I could listen to a lot, but it is very interesting.

“Need to Know” is a simpler song, consisting not of verses and choruses but of three stanzas.  This one starts off very sparse and mellow, before the full band coming in on the last stanza.  Very nice.

Apparently, the band also recorded “Carry On Wayward Son” with the orchestra as well, but held it out in case the recording was popular enough to warrant a second such collaboration.  Sales were not large (which is a shame), so that recording has never seen the light of day.

[Orbert]

Argh, I've been listening to Somewhere to Elsewhere.  I was actually kinda proud of the fact that I was keeping up for once, but mostly, I didn't think I had this one, but it seems I do.  More Kansas to check out!

[hefdaddy42]

Argh, I've been listening to Somewhere to Elsewhere.  I was actually kinda proud of the fact that I was keeping up for once, but mostly, I didn't think I had this one, but it seems I do.  More Kansas to check out!

Just keeping you on your toes, Orbert!

I love Somewhere to Elsewhere, and we will get there soon enough.

[Orbert]

When we first got broadband in our house, way back in the early 2000's, I went a little nuts and downloaded entire albums, often entire discographies, of pretty much every band I like or have been meaning to check out.  I think I have around 300 or 400gb of tunes now, but it doesn't all fit on my iPod, so I have to choose what I have at my immediate disposal.  Somewhere to Elsewhere is on my iPod, but apparently I chose not to put Always Never the Same on it.  Probably because it's not a "regular" studio album.  But I found it on the PC, and will be transferring it so I can check it out.

Note:  Thread title needs updating.

[hefdaddy42]

When we first got broadband in our house, way back in the early 2000's, I went a little nuts and downloaded entire albums, often entire discographies, of pretty much every band I like or have been meaning to check out.  I think I have around 300 or 400gb of tunes now, but it doesn't all fit on my iPod, so I have to choose what I have at my immediate disposal.  Somewhere to Elsewhere is on my iPod, but apparently I chose not to put Always Never the Same on it.  Probably because it's not a "regular" studio album.  But I found it on the PC, and will be transferring it so I can check it out.

Cool.

Note:  Thread title needs updating.

[hefdaddy42]

KING BISCUIT FLOWER HOUR PRESENTS KANSAS (1998)



1.   Magnum Opus (Howlin’ at the Moon)
2.   One Big Sky
3.   Paradox
4.   Point of Know Return
5.   The Wall
6.   All I Wanted
7.   T.O. Witcher
8.   Dust in the Wind
9.   Miracles Out of Nowhere
10.   The Preacher
11.   House on Fire
12.   Carry On Wayward Son

This is the band’s third released live album.  However, in order of performance/recording, it is the second.  The band’s show at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia on February 14, 1989 was broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour, who eventually released the performance on CD nine years later, long after guitarist Steve Morse had left the band.  There were two additional songs performed that night that weren’t captured for recording or broadcast, "Play the Game Tonight" and a cover of "Born to be Wild" (so no great loss).

It’s a good snapshot of the band’s live performances during this period.  The music is mostly very good, and frankly Walsh sound pretty good through most of it as well.  This lineup handles the older songs very well, IMHO.  The performance of "House on Fire" is much longer than the studio version (including some padding by Mr. Morse, but I’ll take it).  The only drawback for me is there a couple of “crowd interaction” spots that seem a little cheesy to me.  But that’s just me.
Since I like this lineup, I like this album.  If you do, you probably will, as well. 

[Jaq]

This is pretty much the set they played when I saw them on this tour with Night Ranger opening, and it was a really, really good show. Though my lasting memory of that night was a drunk guy at the club I saw them at mistaking me for a friend and giving me shots off the bottle of tequila he'd snuck in. When the bouncers spotted his bottle and took it away from him, he appeared a few minutes later with two colossal beers he'd bought and gave one to me. 

[hefdaddy42]

This is pretty much the set they played when I saw them on this tour with Night Ranger opening, and it was a really, really good show. Though my lasting memory of that night was a drunk guy at the club I saw them at mistaking me for a friend and giving me shots off the bottle of tequila he'd snuck in. When the bouncers spotted his bottle and took it away from him, he appeared a few minutes later with two colossal beers he'd bought and gave one to me. 

[hefdaddy42]

THE BEST OF KANSAS – REISSUE (1999)



1.   Carry On Wayward Son
2.   Point of Know Return
3.   Fight Fire With Fire
4.   Dust in the Wind
5.   Song For America
6.   Hold On
7.   No One Together
8.   Play the Game Tonight
9.   The Wall
10.   The Pinnacle
11.   The Devil Game
12.   Closet Chronicles (Live)

In 1999, the decision was made for the band to reissue their Best of release from 1984, but this time with input from the entire band.  The resulting compilation is, in my opinion, more deserving of the compilation’s title than the earlier release.

The differences featured on the reissue:
1.   Use the original mixes for “Carry On Wayward Son” and “The Wall” instead of the remixes done specifically for the 1984 compilation
2.   Lose the Elefante song “Perfect Lover”
3.   Adding “The Pinnacle” and “The Devil Game”
4.   Adding a live version of “Closet Chronicles” that had originally been deleted from the CD release of Two For the Show.

This is now a pretty good compilation, although in all honesty, I would probably have left off the other two Elefante-era songs as well in favor of some other tunes from the first three albums, but that’s just me.  They were hits, so I can’t really argue with them being included.

[Orbert]

Agreed.  I must say, I've never understood including alternate versions of songs instead of the original on a compilation like this.  If you want to include it as a bonus track, sure, it could be interesting.  But "Carry On Wayward Son" was their breakthrough hit, and still one of my all-time favorites of theirs.  If I'd bought the original Best of album and found out that they'd given me some other version, and I didn't even get the one I wanted in the first place, I'd be pretty annoyed.

----------

So I finally got a chance to listen to Always Never the Same.  I'm not impressed.  It seems like both a missed opportunity and a rather strange creation in the first place.  I'm gonna go ahead and lay out my critiques, and it's gonna sound pretty damning, but I suppose that's the nature of critique.  It's always easier to find things you feel went wrong or fell short of the mark than to note everything that didn't stick out.

For some reason, I thought that this was recorded live.  I don't know why; it doesn't say that anywhere, and you didn't say it in your review, but a lot of bands have done the "perform live with an orchestra" thing so I guess I thought this was one of them.  So that threw me off at first, but I got over it, and I can't count it against the band or anything, although it does raise the question "Why?"  Why go to all the trouble to come up with all these arrangements and record with an orchestra and perform it for... no one?

I understand the allure of performing with an orchestra.  I've played in orchestras, and it's great.  It's amazing being part of a truly massive sound, a composition much larger than you could ever perform yourself.  And as someone who's played in rock bands, I understand the allure of having your band augmented by an orchestra.  Many bands have done it.  But few have done it well.  Most sound like everyone got caught up in the idea, then turned over the task of arranging it all to some music school grad student.  You've got a whole orchestra to work with, and that's actually a hell of a burden.  You have to find something worthwhile for most if not all players to do, and the songs just didn't have that in mind when they were written.  Even Kansas songs, which like most prog is quite "orchestral" in nature, doesn't have nearly the complexity to keep an entire orchestra busy.  So the arranger must walk the line between adding things that embellish the original tune, and throwing in too much and making it just sound cheesy and wrong.  There's also erring on the side of being too lean; the really big moments could and should be huge.  Make them huge!

Everyone's taste is different, but I often found myself wondering why the arranger even thought that adding a certain part was a good idea, other than it gave the brass something to do, or woodwinds.  And there were a few times when I would've gone for more, and he chose to keep it simple.  Could I have done a better job?  Hell, no.  Well, maybe, given enough time.  Maybe that was the issue.  A lot of it does sound rushed.

The track listing is weird.  The "Prelude & Introduction" was clearly meant to be the opener, to set the mood, etc., but for some reason they buried it in the middle of the album.  You're listening, finally coming to terms with what they've done, and then there's this interlude medley thing.  Why not start the album with it, as it was so obviously meant to be?

Instead, they start with a Beatles cover?  And a kinda bad one, at that?  That amazing ascending line which comes in on the third verse of the original and adds poignancy and character is instead played all three verses, therefore robbing the song of any payoff and at the same time robbing the line itself of any real meaning.  Less can be more.  It seems like they just went for more here.

Oh crap, I'm not gonna go through it track by track.  I'll just say that I was looking forward to hearing some great Kansas songs embellished by an orchestra, and instead got an album of mediocre covers.  Between Walsh's voice being completely blown and sounding nothing like on the original recordings, changing the arrangements for no good reason (and often to the detriment of the composition), and a combination of Baird's pointless additions and glaring omissions, they sounded kinda a Kansas cover band recording with a high school orchestra and thinking that it turned out pretty cool, when instead it was just kinda meh.

If you like Kansas, I can see you getting into this, or maybe just being turned off by it.  I fall into the second category.  My handicap is that I know the original arrangements inside and out, so when he takes out a section of "Song for America", I miss it, and when he repeats a section of "The Wall", it sticks out.

Yes did it properly.  When the original keyboard parts evoked brass, they used brass.  When the original arrangement evoked woodwinds, they used woodwinds.  The songs were embellished and augmented, but it felt very organic, and they didn't do things like cut sections out or repeat other sections randomly.  The song structure was the same.

Our own Dream Theater did it properly.  Not just the pieces that originally had orchestra, but the "Six Degrees" suite as well, and for the same reasons.  It was organic.  The execution, unfortunately, had some issues, but I thought the arrangements were great.

Heck, while we're at it, even KISS did a better job of using an orchestra.  Ever heard Alive IV?  I was really surprised.

Here, there are too many times when the arranger took it upon himself to change the tone.  That heavy, driving feel in "Cheyenne Anthem" when the White Man shows up is instead underplayed and thus loses all impact.  The fugue section in "Miracles out of Nowhere" has too much dynamic contrast between parts.  It's not a fugue if you do that, dummy!  The whole point of a fugue is the counterpoint, the interweaving of contrasting parts.  If some parts are loud and some are in the background, you completely lose that.

Basically, things were changed just because he thought it would be cool to do something different, things were added that just didn't work, and opportunities were missed to actually embellish the arrangements.  I find the whole thing rather mediocre, and result is rendered pointless.

[hefdaddy42]

Thanks for the input, Orbert!  I'm sorry you didn't like it more.

It is indeed a strange animal.  Neither fish nor fowl.

[King Postwhore]

I'm just blown away that Bob listened to Kiss Alive IIII !

[hefdaddy42]

I see you don't type Roman numerals any better than you type English.

[Orbert]

Thanks for the input, Orbert!  I'm sorry you didn't like it more.

It is indeed a strange animal.  Neither fish nor fowl.

I waver between trying not to consider myself a musical snob and wearing the label proudly.  It's both a blessing and a curse to know a lot about music.  When something's done right, I can really appreciate it, but when something's done wrong (IMO of course), it bugs me more than I assume it would most people.

But rather than just say it was meh, I guess I felt the need to explain myself.  Then the coffee kicked in and, well... you see what happened!

I'm just blown away that Bob listened to Kiss Alive IIII !

I had to.  I watched the DVD and enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, so I had to check out the album (which basically sounds the same, but that's a good thing).

[King Postwhore]

I see you don't type Roman numerals any better than you type English.

 

Crap IV

[Orbert]

[King Postwhore]

Now I want to listen to Pink Floyd.

[hefdaddy42]

SOMEWHERE TO ELSEWHERE (2000)



“And I will walk with you
On the shores of the land of promises that
Blind men see you too
I'd sail a thousand seas to make it so”

1.   Icarus II    (Livgren)                  7:17
2.   When the World was Young (Livgren)            5:50
3.   Grand Fun Alley (Livgren)               4:38
4.   The Coming Dawn (Thanatopsis) (Livgren)         5:44
5.   Myriad (Livgren)                  8:55
6.   Look at the Time (Livgren)               5:37
7.   Disappearing Skin Tight Blues (Livgren)            7:02
8.   Distant Vision (Livgren)                  8:48
9.   Byzantium (Livgren)                  4:15
10.   Not Man Big (Livgren)                  8:49
11.   Geodesic Dome (Hidden Track) (Livgren)            1:24

In 2000, Kerry Livgren was writing a batch of new songs, but he felt that they all sounded more like Kansas songs than anything else.  So he called Phil Ehart and told him about it, and the two wound up getting all six original members of the band (plus Billy Greer) to come back to Kansas to record a new album made up of these songs.

Somewhere to Elsewhere definitely marks a full return to the original free-wheeling American progressive rock sound of the Kansas heyday.  It is full of compositions fully the equal of the band’s first five albums in terms of ambition and scope.

The first track is “Icarus II”, a sequel to Masque’s “Icarus-Borne on Wings of Steel.”  This is an absolute masterpiece, and a wonderful choice for an album opener.  Lyrically, it is about combat pilots, engaging their enemies in the skies.  Musically, it is a master class, and the nods to the original song are subtle but present, and there are plenty of original hooks as well.  Gorgeous.  And, I might add, IMHO this song is better than the original.

“When the World Was Young” opens up with a blistering riff, and gives way to a mid-tempo rocker.  The chorus features Steve Walsh hitting the lowest note I’ve heard from him (and one he probably shouldn’t have attempted in the first place), but otherwise, he sounds pretty good here.  The song doesn’t have all that much going on until the opening riff shows up again to go to the instrumental section, which is pretty cool.  The music after the last chorus features a nod to Leftoverture’s “Magnum Opus.”

“Grand Fun Alley” is another mid-tempo song featuring a Robby Steinhardt vocal.  It features a smoother delivery with a funky feel to it.  It’s kind of fun, but nothing really special.

“The Coming Dawn (Thanatopsis)” is a keyboard-based ballad that at first seems somewhat simple, but has a subtle grace.  The lyrics are uplifting, and the instrumental section features some interesting progressions.  And the violin work over the outro is nice as well.  I love this song.  It makes me happy.

The next song, “Myriad”, starts off with some low-key piano work, but winds up as a really nice rocking tune.  Some nice lead guitar work, as well.  The instrumental section leading up to the first vocals has a great classic Kansas feel, very much like something that could have fit on the first three albums.  The vocal section in the middle of the instrumental section is really cool.  In many ways, this song is a real throwback, and in a good way.  Lot to love here.

“Look at the Time”, for me, has almost a Beatles feel to it, especially the verses.  Maybe that’s offbase, but that’s how it hits me.  The rest of the song is all Kansas.  The instrumental section is nice, too.  I like this song a lot, but given the relative strength of some of the rest of the tracks on the album, it can sometimes get lost for me.

Up next is “Disappearing Skin Tight Blues”.  The piano & violin intro is a haunting melody, which gives way to a blues/boogie song, reminiscent of some songs on the oldest Kansas albums.  Steinhardt delivers the gruff vocal as only he can.  The chorus reminds me of something from the Little River Band.  This song isn’t like most of the others on the album, but it definitely leaves a smile on my face.

“Distant Visions” may be the proggiest song in the entire Kansas discography.  In just the intro section alone, there are multiple changes, in mood, tempo, time signature, and feel.  Once the lyrics come in, it calms down a little, but the lyrics are SO GOOD.  The instrumental section in the middle of the song is also incredibly satisfying.  When everything is wrapped up, I am left with what is for sure one of my favorite Kansas songs.  I mean, I don’t want to oversell it or anything, but I think it is fantastic.

“Byzantium” has (fittingly) a real Middle Eastern feel.  That feel, combined with the lyrical content, make this song unlike most others by Kansas; at the same time, it also feels like a classic Kansas tune.  That is one of the gifts of this band when they are operating on all cylinders.  Great song.

“Not Man Big” has a lyrical base in, well, I don’t know.  I don’t really understand what’s going on here.  But the music is cool.  I love hearing what the rest of the band is doing underneath the keyboard solo in the instrumental break, some really tasty stuff there.  Other than that, it’s an OK song.  Doesn’t really hold up to the rest of the album, but it’s OK.

There is a hidden track following “Not Man Big” called “Geodesic Dome”.  It’s a very short piece, sounds like it was recorded on a portable recorder, played on acoustic guitar with slide.  Kind of a nonsense piece, it reminds me of the track “Love for Sale” at the end of Bon Jovi’s New Jersey album.  It’s a fun ending to the album.

Somewhere to Elsewhere was released on July 11, 2000 on Magna Carta records, which was a real shame, since they did absolutely NOTHING to promote the album.  That’s depressing, especially given the quality of the music contained herein.  There was originally a two-album deal with Magna Carta, but after the non-promotion of this project, Steinhardt and Livgren left the band again, and the contract fell apart.  So this album was written and recorded with the best of intentions, and with great results, and then went promptly nowhere.  Which sucks for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that this is the band’s best album since at least Point of Know Return, and easily belongs in the company of those magical first five albums.

To date, this remains the last studio album by Kansas.

[King Postwhore]

It's a great album and I saw them touring for this.  Robbie was still with them at the time which was a real treat.