AUDIO-VISIONS

If you read the reviews above, you already know the stories about this album : dissensions between Walsh and Livgren, both of them claiming afterwards that they saved their best material for their solo debuts, and the arguably best song, "No One Together", being taken from the Monolith sessions.

OK but remember that this is still Kansas in its original line-up. Following history proved that Kansas without one of the two guys mentioned above ranges from average (Vynil Confessions, w/o Walsh) to miserable (Drastic Measures w/o Walsh and the following triplet w/o Livgren). The unexpected brilliance of Somewhere to Elsewhere confirmed that Kansas needs both Walsh and Livgren to shine.

Luckily for you and me, as I said before, everybody was still there for Audio-Visions and I never felt, listening to it, that the guys didn't have fun recording it. What strikes me with this album is its energy. Up to the first notes of "Relentless", guitars and drums are all over the place and Walsh's voice is at its best too.

Yes, some songs are clearly straight-forward-rock oriented. Yes, there are a few cheesy lyrics. Yes, "Hold On" and "Got To Rock On" dangerously flirt with AOR (but no more than "Dust In The Wind"). And yes, the cover is awful.

But in the end the whole thing appears to be an extremely underrated gem. Certainly not the clever work by Kansas but probably the one that gives you the most fun to listen to. So I can't give less than four stars to an album that I have played thousand times without skipping one song. And I would have given five stars if we were talking about rock in general and not only prog rock.