POWER

Really not a bad album at all. This is the first album after Kansas was reunited by vocalist Steve Walsh, less original songwriter Kerry Livgren and original Bassist Dave Hope. Steve Walsh, as the principal songwriter in Kansas for the first time, goes for a far more commercial approach than appeared on earlier Kansas albums, but, to his credit, he does it well. With most of the songs co-written by new guitarist Steve Morse (of the Dixie Dregs), "Power" is a pretty solid AOR album.

"Silhouettes in Disguise" kicks the album off to a good start, with an uptempo guitar riff and a catchy chorus. The title track is very good as well, sounding definitively 80s, but with none of the cheesiness that pervaded a lot of music from that decade. "All I Wanted," a love ballad, was, somewhat predictably, the most popular song on the album and also stands out as the least interesting. Terrible lyrics, and it's far from catchy enough to save itself. "Secret Service" and "We're Not Alone Anymore," are both rockers, and good ones at that. "Musicatto" is obviously an attempt to recreate some of the progressive instrumentalism of Kansas' past, and it works pretty well. Given that Walsh wrote "The Spider," off of "Point of Know Return," I guess it shouldn't be to surprising that a fast and complicated little instrumental like this works. "Taking in the View" is another downtempo song, but it's loads better than "All I Wanted" and lyrically actually pretty interesting. "Three Pretenders" and "Tomb 19" have exceedingly silly lyrics, but they're catchy AOR material and that's good enough for me, and certainly par for the course with this album.

Unfortunately, this album ends with another cheesy love ballad, this one not even written by members of Kansas. It's bland, it's boring, but at least it has good vocals.

"Power" is a far cry from Kansas' earlier progressive masterpieces, but it's a nice, commercial album that's really pretty enjoyable. Just don't start your Kansas experience here.

3/5