MONOLITH

I'm very stunned in the least to say that for a Kansas album, MONOLITH is very ho-hum/run-of- the-mill in terms of the overall sound. Everything you expect about the Kansas sound is still there and in relative abundance, but the overall songwriting seems to have slipped into generic hard rock. There isn't anything wrong with that, it's just that compared to earlier Kansas albums, it's a disappointment.

As I am trying to write comments on the album, I find it very hard to pinpoint exactly what to say, especially on the points of why I don't like it and why I gave it a maligning rating. I like hard rock, but that genre gets too old too quickly since I feel that the ''main hard rock sound'' is too stagnant and never evolves. I feel that Kansas takes on the ''stagnant hard rock'' sound on this album with traces of their prog past. There's really no other explanation I've got.

To be honest, the barroom boogie feel of ''How My Soul Cries Out For You'' is the most memorable MONOLITH tune in my mind (say that five times fast). There's also an interesting acoustic guitar lick in ''Away From You'' and a few guitar solos are of a worthy mention. But, if you're very into prog rock and don't know Kansas, don't go here. Try any album that came earlier first. This one is for those who already love Kansas, or for those who can stomach ''People of the South Wind''.