VINYL CONFESSIONS

Tensions over the musical direction of Kansas and its subject matter temporarily strained relations between Kerry Livgren and Steve Walsh, leading to the singer's estrangement after "Audio-Visions", and led in turn to the incorporation of the young John Elefante as his replacement for "Vinyl Confessions" (1982), the band's eighth album.

And with Elefante, things continued along the path that had already been foreseen on "Monolith" and "Audio-Visions", with songs with a marked AOR orientation, such as the opening "Play the Game Tonight", the scornful "Right Away" very sweetened with saxophones and trumpets, or the energised and anxious "Windows" and "Play On", all songs twinned with structures similar to those of their compatriots Toto, Survivor or Foreigner, among others.

Some nuances come with the bluesy aromas of the sobering "Fair Exchange" and its novel harmonica notes, with the instrumental purity of the beautiful and melancholic "Chasing Shadows" very much indebted to the archly famous "Dust in the Wind" and caressed by Robby Steinhardt's lulling violin, and with the boogie rock "Borderline" marked by its accessible choruses led by the active Elefante and Rich Williams' hard rock riffs.

And despite their increasingly notorious detachment from progressive developments, the closing "Crossfire", with its undisguisable religious message, is a masterful demonstration that some symphonic recessive genes were still present in the musical DNA of Kansas, with a stupendous and raspy instrumental development that would have fit perfectly in any of the most representative works of the band's first stage. Without a doubt, the best track on "Vinyl Confessions".

2.5/3 stars

Social review comments

Review related links

• Send comments to Hector Enrique
• Report this review (#3148631)
• Buy KANSAS music online with PA partners
• Show all KANSAS MP3/Stream
• Go to KANSAS page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Vinyl Confessions page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for KANSAS related discussions