DRASTIC MEASURES

I guess since I submitted one Elefante led Kansas disc, may as well bookend it with 1983's Drastic Measures. Unlike Vinyl Confessions a couple of years prior, I actually bought this on vinyl when it was released because of "Fight Fire With Fire"; however, if memory serves, I really didn't spin it very often and it went away when I made the transfer from vinyl to CD's.

Fast Forward 20 years when I picked up Drastic Measures on disc while on my way up to catch a Texas/Nebraska football game in Lincoln. I really LISTENED to Drastic Measures and found out how much I enjoy the Elefante era of Kansas. Nothing will surpass classics like Leftoverture and Point. And by my estimation, Livgren's involvement was decreasing as John and Dino's were increasing for Drastic Measures. Robbie Steinhardt's trademark violin was gone, so one has to look at this as an entirely different band. That being said, Drastic Measures is full of powerful music and allowed the Brothers Elefante to showcase their songwriting. I saw a couple of negative reviews towards "Andi", but it's a beautiful ballad, with albeit odd lyrics.

"Don't Take Your Love Away" and "Going Through The Motions" have both emerged to be favorites of mine from DM's. The former exhibiting some great drumming by Phil Ehart, and the latter showing some great guitar riffs. The only thing is in 2006, they do sound a bit dated.

It also seems with every passing album, Livgren's lyrics were becoming more spiritually charged...which is never more evident than on "End Of The Age".

All in all, not an essential Kansas disc for the die hard Wheathead, but still a nice disc with a hilarious album cover (still cracks me up to this day).