SOMEWHERE TO ELSEWHERE

It had been exactly 20 (!) years, since Audio-Visions, that I was waiting for another good Kansas album. In fact, I had lost hope and turned my ears away from the band. So Somewhere to Elsewhere is an even better surprise to me.

From the first notes of "Icarus II", you realize that the magic is there again, thanks to Livgren's composer gifts. Of course, everything is not perfect. There are three fillers : a sub-par blues-rock ("Grand Fun Alley"), another dispensable rocker ("Disappearing Skin Tight Blues") and a very average ballad ("The Coming Dawn"). But the other seven songs vary from very good to great.

The first highlight is, of course, "Icarus II", even if Walsh's half-broken voice screaming "Flak" reminds us that we are all, uh, hopelessly human. "Distant Visions" and "Myriad" are the other epics. "When The World Was Young" and "Not Man Big" (I love the chorus of this one) are two nice rockers. "Look At The Time" is quite an uncommon song for Kansas with a catchy melody and nice vocals from Billy Greer. Last but not least, "Byzantium" is a touching ballad with oriental flavors.

So this one-shot reformation of Kansas original line-up (plus Greer) is everything but a failure. Thanks for all, guys. You may now retire in peace ... or go on if you have got such good stuff left in your drawers.

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