VINYL CONFESSIONS

It has been quite a long that Kansas has left the prog edge. We are in eighties now, and the FM sound of Kansas has little thing to do with the Kansas I once loved so much. Religion was a main source of inspiration which is always dangerous. Walsh's departure didn't help to increase the global quality level.

The opener "Play the Game Tonight" was one of their greatest hits, but it has nothing to do with great, emotional Kansas songs like "Miracles out of Nowhere" or "Lamplight Symphony". These are all gone by now and we have to digest some vinyl confessions : not easy. FM flavour for this song which is not so bad after all. "Right Away" will be of the same configuration : AOR all the way through.

"Fair Exchange" is one of the heaviest song of the band so far. It is not he worst song of the album, but compared to some Kansas previous work it is of course rather unexpected. To compensate, "Chasing Shadows" is a rock ballad like Kansas have investigate a bit since "Dust In The Wind". A bit mellow, but the strings arrangements add a special touch to it. After all, this was Kansas trade mark, right ?

With "Diamonds and Pearls" we plunged into the poorest Kansas song so far : truely horrible vocals, awful melody. What the hell is going on ? Hard to believe, really. The introduction of "Face It" on the contrary brings us back in their glory days : nice and subtle violin for about 30 seconds, leave the place to a strong rock piece of music : from hard-rock to AOR. This might well be one of the few good songs here. The following "Windows" is also a good rocking number, I must confess... Two good numbers in a row !

The commercial "Borderline" is hard to listen to. Another very poor song : awful chorus, lack of flavour, very weak instrumental parts. In one word, forget this one. The intro of "Play On" reminds me of ELO. Unfortunately, it evolves into a pure AOR tune which, again, is far from being great. Another poor number I'm afraid.

The closing "Crossfire" saves a bit the album. It is the sole attempt to re-create the classic Kansas songs we all love : good violin work from Steinhardt, great rythm with several theme changes, very good instrumental breaks. If only the band had investigated a bit more into this direction !

I would definitely not recommend this album as the entry to Kansas. Grab their first four albums to figure out how great they were. Songs are not really bad but most of them have no soul nor feeling. Two stars.