AUDIO-VISIONS

Kansas have begun to fall apart, as pillars Livgren and Walsh prepare their solo careers. This is the last album to feature the classic lineup of the band and it's treated as an afterthought by both main songwriters; with impressive results like this, one has to wonder what they could achieve if they were fully commited to the band!
Let's do a track-by-track review:

1. Relentless
Oh, that's a nice surprise! A religious song by Kansas that's actually pretty good! Nice pop rocker with a powerful, lengthy guitar solo and very good lyrics considering the religious theme. Trimmed down to 3-3.5 minutes, it could easily be released as a Single.

2. Anything for You - a Kansas classic
What a great pop-rocker! They sound exactly like Toto in this one, and this can only be a good thing. Great individual performances by all members, but Dave Hope's bass lines and Phil Ehart's flawless drumming are the backbone of the song. Very good composition with no weaknesses, it deserves to be labelled as a "Kansas classic"! This should be the second Single of the album, not "Got To Rock On".

3. Hold On - a Kansas classic
The second-best soft ballad Kansas ever wrote, with "Dust in the Wind" being number 1 of course. It sounds a bit dull in this original version though... It's much better when they play it live, and the orchestral version from the "Always Never the Same" album is truly awesome! Definitely Single material, it reached #40 on Billboard as expected.

4. Loner
A pretty good idea, but it could be worked better. The riff is very good, it's fast-paced melody makes it sound like a racing game soundtrack, but the verses are not special and the arrangement could and should be richer. In three words: "potential not fulfilled".

5. Curtain of Iron - a Kansas classic - best 80s song by Kansas - best song of the album - my favorite song of the album - most underrated song of the album
KA-BOOM!!! Where did this come from?! A fantastic song, criminally underrated by the band themselves, as they didn't believe in it and they played it live only a handful of times in the 1980-1982 period! It's also not very popular among the fans, as it has not many streams on YouTube, Last.fm or elsewhere... I really don't get how such a wonderful composition gets overlooked like this! You already know by the many tags I gave it, that I consider it not only the best song of the album but the best song of the decade for Kansas.

6. Got to Rock On - worst song of the album
Uhhhh... THAT is the second song they chose to release as a Single? It doesn't make sense. Absolutely nothing special about it, a forgettable simple rocker in the style of (mediocre) Journey.

7. Don't Open Your Eyes - a Kansas classic
Second-best song of the album, second most Prog song of the album, second most underrated song of the album! It has everything we love in Kansas: time signature changes, frenzy violin, intensity, dark lyrics, and it's the only composition of that album credited to the whole band. If it wasn't for "Curtain of Iron", this one would steal the show! Yet, the band themselves buried that one too, playing it live less than 20 times and only during the 1980-81 period. So strange...

8. No One Together - most Prog song of the album
I read opinions on this song being a masterpiece and of the same quality as the Leftoverture and Point of Know Return songs... Unfortunately, I can't relate. I would love to love it, but I find it "just" very good. It's a respectable composition, 7 minutes of fast-paced Prog in the trademark Kansas style, everything is very good but nothing is outstanding in it. Thumbs up, but one-handed!

9. No Room for a Stranger
Typical Steve Walsh-made blues rocker with perfect arrangement that elevates its whole imprint. Not special but absolutely enjoyable!

10. Back Door - a Kansas classic
Beautiful vocal melodies and wonderful lyrics, one of the best power ballads Steve ever wrote! It begins with him on piano and shared vocals with Steinhardt, and then the whole band joins them in a very tasteful arrangement decision. The pretty good violin solo is followed by one of the best lines ever on a Kansas song: "I want the world to be a place where no one comes to suffer, just give the pain an empty place away from one another...". Bravo Steve! For the end, what a surprise - the last song of the classic Kansas line-up's last album ends with bagpipes! How appropriate and unique is that, they never did that before or after!

RATING:
This is the first album to contain 10 tracks instead of the standard 8, and half of them are Kansas classics to me. It also contains two of the best songs of the 80s Kansas, "Curtain of Iron" and "Don't Open Your Eyes". Just to keep the classification relevant I have to keep it in the three stars spectrum, but definitely 3.5! It's average quality is higher than Masque and Monolith and it stands as the fifth-best album Kansas did since their debut, surpassed only naturally by their four unbeatable classics.