AUDIO-VISIONS

After the excellent album "Leftoverture", which was also the band's big breakthrough album, the band and the label was willing to stop taking so many risks with their music. Even though "Point of Know Return" was a decent album, you could hear the beginnings of the overall sound becoming more radio-friendly. This would continue with the next album "Monolith" which the band self-produced. Even though the sound was more commercial, it is interesting that it didn't get the attention of the previous album. So, there was an attempt to become even more radio-friendly. There was also the issue of the band suddenly feeling some creative tensions amongst the members. These were the circumstances that surrounded the 1980 release "Audio Visions".

Part of the reason that there were growing tensions was the fact that the band was growing apart and both Kerry Livgren and David Hope had become born-again Christians, thus the lyrics were starting to get religious overtones. Steve Walsh was not very enthusiastic about this fact and sung them a bit begrudgingly. The album did manage to receive a bit of radio play with the hit "Hold On" which had lyrics that reflected Livgren's newfound beliefs. That, however was the only song to receive much attention.

If you had been following the band up to this point, then "Audio Visions" would be a major disappointment since it was the biggest shift away from their original sound. This time around, there were very few guitar, synth or violin solos. The songs were more straightforward rock-based songs, some even becoming quite poppy. This is apparent from the very beginning with the typical sounding rock of "Relentless" and "Anything for You". The signature sound of the violin is kept in check as it is forced to just follow along and play in tandem with the melody, so it no longer stands out. Both the vocals and the instruments don't seem to have any enthusiasm for the music. "Hold On" is the hit from the radio of course, and it is actually one of the strongest songs on the album, but it is not the Kansas that we were once familiar with. This sub-par sound continues with "Loner" and doesn't even improve with the first track to break the 6 minute mark "Curtain of Iron".

Things only get worse with the embarrassingly bad "Got to Rock On" (what would you expect with such a generic title). They can't even get a decent hook out of this awful track. "Don't Open Your Eyes" is the only track on the album to give five of the six members writing credits. That doesn't make it any better though, so I suppose it proves that the entire band was sold on self-destruction at the time. This is the most disconnected song on the album. We do, however, finally get a decent song on the next track "No One Together" which sounds like a track that could have been good enough for the "Point of Know Return" album. It manages to almost reach 7 minutes this time around, and it actually seems like it has room to breathe. Even though this album didn't seem to feel like Kansas anymore, at least the ghost of the band is still present in this track. "No Room for a Stranger" moves into a jazzy-blues style of a track, which almost sounds like it could have gone somewhere, but unfortunately, there wasn't any time to take it anywhere and it just ends up being another track. Finally, "Back Door" ends the album with some nice harmonies reminiscent of the old Kansas, but that's the only thing really good about it.

It's obvious there were some issues among the members about which path the future Kansas was going to take. Since LIvgren wrote most of the lyrics, he had a lot of say about where he wanted the band to go and Walsh would end up leaving the band to start his own band "Streets". This would end up being the break up of the original line-up and a new lead singer would be hired who was also a devout Christian, and this would be the direction the band would go in for the time being. This would see the continued downward spiral of the band as the quality of the music would continue to suffer for a while. At the time, it seemed as if any hope of Kansas returning as a respectable band was lost as they tried to follow in the footsteps of pop/rock bands like Foreigner and Journey when they had at one time seemed to be a band that could lead the way to more progressive music. The fight to remain relevant would become harder to fight as music became more radio-friendly and simple and the public lost interest in progressive rock.