LEFTOVERTURE

Kansas had already been experimenting with long form songs such as "Song for America" before they produced this album. The main difference is that this time they were attempting to incorporate more "Prog" into the mix. "Miracles Out Of Nowhere" for example reminds me of Gentle Giant- especially the fugue like instrumental section."Cheyenne Anthem" which always reminds me of BJH at least for the first couple of verses also has a complex instrumental section which works well.Another highlight is "The Wall" -a pleasant piano based ballad with a thoughtful lyric.Most of the other tracks are still typical hard riff based rockers like the anthemic "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Whats On My Mind".The closing track- the rather pompously titled "Magnum Opus" is the one which I have the most problem with. Apparently it was cobbled together from various bits of music which had yet to find a home-maybe the inspiration for the album's title? The problem is that it comes across as a series of disjointed hard rock riffs piled on top of each other in a vain attempt to create some sort of "Grand" statement.The end result is just a little too bombastic and incoherent for my ears.

Overall I would say Leftoverture is a brave attempt to push their music in a more progressive direction and while hardly able to compete with the major players of the day is still a good album. 3 stars

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