POWER

So say the liner notes. As a big fan of the Dixie Dregs and Kansas in the late 70's, if you were to tell me back then that one day Kerry Livgren would leave and get replaced by Steve Morse, I'd think you were crazy, but in 1986, that's just what happened. Steve would only hang around for one more album and, unfortunately, a marriage that could have produced some really great music, just produced some average material, but then this was the '80's, after all. This would also be the first album with Billy Greer on bass. Might have been nice to have Robbie Steinhardt on here as Morse works well with violin, but he had departed after Vinyl Confessions.

With all due respect to Steve Morse, even though Kansas had really peaked with Point Of Know Return, Kerry's songwriting is sorely missed. The vocal track that's the most progressive and reminiscent of the old material is Taking In The View. The instrumental, Musicatto doesn't disappoint either. We're Not Alone Anymore gets the gold for most Dregs like song. Pretty much in the vein of the two commercial attempts Steve made on the last Dregs album.

Still, this album basically lost my interest fairly quickly and I just recently decided to get the CD as it was for sale dirt cheap. Plus being a Dregs and Kansas fan, it's just something I had to have for my collection. The next Morse/Kansas album, In the Spirit of Things, would also be equally average and caused me to pretty much lose interest in Kansas until Somewhere To Elsewhere came out in 2000.

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