SOMEWHERE TO ELSEWHERE

I think that the main Progressive Rock influences in Kansas were always contributed by Kerry Livgren, as this album shows. This is the first studio album from the band with him since "Drastic Measures" in 1983, a very Pop Rock album which maybe disappointed him very much and he (as Dave Hope also did the same) left the band in 1984. After that, Kansas split too, until it was reformed by Phil Ehart and Rich Williams in 1985, again with Steve Walsh as lead singer and keyboard player, with two new members, Billy Greer and Steve Morse, and without a violin player.They recorded two other albums with less and less Prog Rock arrangements and more oriented to Pop Rock and Hard Rock music. And after several line-up changes and tours in the nineties (sometimes with Livgren and Hope) and some live albums and a studio album in 1995 ("Freaks of Nature"), they finally released this studio album in 2000 titled "Somewhere to Elsewhere", with all songs composed by Livgren, and with the presence of the six original members of the band (more or less, as Hope only appears on two tracks and Walsh sings in most but not on all the songs, and he recorded his vocals apart while he was away recording a solo album), and with Greer playing bass on most songs and also singing lead vocals on one song ("Look at the Time"). Robbie Steinhardt´s violin playing is very present in most songs, with some classical music arrangements, and the band, as in the seventies, has a mixture of very Progressive Rock and classical music arrangements and also some Heavy Rock arrangements, very typical from them at the time, but most of the time without the Pop Rock influences which were very present in their albums from the eighties. Steinhardt also sings lead vocals in some songs. So, as a whole this album is very good, bringing back the sound of the original Kansas line-up from the seventies most of the time. This is a very good album.