POINT OF KNOW RETURN

With apologies to amyone who thinks Leftoverture is Kansas best album, Point Of Known Return is really the american prog rockers at their very peak. It´s amazing how this band could deliver such brilliant work in the middle of a great crisis, when Steve Walsh almost left the band. Well, in the end it turned out to be their most perfect album: only very strong material and not a single note wasted. And, to me at least, included in the package are the first prog metal songs I ever heard. I think tunes like The Lightning Hand, Portrait (He Knew) and Sparks Of The Tempest were the blue print for many future prog metal classics (no wonder Blind Gardian´s Hansi Kürsch cites Point Of Known Return as his favourite album). The balance of heavy guitars with prog keyboards, classical violin and american harmony vocals was an amazing novelty at the time.

Point Of Known Return is the most brilliant album ever produced by this band and a great showcase of their talents. I still think Kansas is much underrated by both prog and rock circles. If you´re new to this group, start with this album and discover how ahead of the times they were! The album is much more than just the title track and Dust In The Wind.

A masterpiece of prog music that still sounds fresh and exciting 30 years after its release. A classic!