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Kansas - Power CD (album) cover

POWER

Kansas

 

Symphonic Prog

2.71 | 281 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
1 stars Steve Walsh is back on business but Livgren has left. Steinhardt is still gone, unfortunately. Luckily a big format guitar-player (by his talent) is on board : Steve Morse. The latest two Kansas albums were not masterpieces to say the least. All the prog flavour was gone and there is no reason to believe this will change with this record.

This album is a pure rock one (with the exception of three tracks); FM oriented for part of it (title track and "Three Pretenders" for instance). I admit it's a bit monotonuous although here and there we'll get solid songs like the opener "Silhouettes In Disguise" (at the edge of heaviest side of the band), "We're Not Alone" which is rocking nicely with a strong beat and great guitar breaks.

As usual since a few releases, Kansas will play a mellow rock ballad ("All I Wanted") since they were very successful with the genre earlier on. But willing to re-create "Dust In The Wind" indefinitely is a bit out of purpose. It's like Lynne trying desperately to match "El Dorado". Both of them failed I'm afraid. The bottom is probably reached with "Secret Service", a heavy song with little feeling. Rather poor. In another genre, the short "Taking In The View" is rather useless as well.

Format of the songs is 100 % radio-oriented. In their early days, their producer was begging to get some four minutes pieces of music. That's what we get here : the longest composition clocks at just over 4'30". No way to develop or investigate in complex songs; which was Kansas trademark for a long time.

The instrumental "Musicatto" could have been an intro to an epic Kansas song, but nothing as such here.

Steve Morse's influence is not important enough to have lead to a good record. But it isn't either a catastrophy. A rock album, that's it. Not worse (nor better) than "Invisible Touch" or "Big Generator". I hope you got the idea.

I do not know about the commercial success of this album, but I would recommend you NOT to buy it since it is too far away from the best of Kansas. If you found of Asia, maybe that this album could please you, but it is not really my case.

I guess that Kansas has a deep sense of humour. The title of their last album was "Drastic Measures" and the closing number here is called "Can't Cry Anymore". Well just listen to this album to do so. Actually this number is probably the best of the album. Sorry guys, this is my first one star rating for a Kansas album.

ZowieZiggy | 1/5 |

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