POINT OF KNOW RETURN

Kansas

Symphonic Prog

4.18 | 906 ratings

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Sean Trane
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk

rounded up to the upper star

Although this is the album that put the group on the international scene, mostly due to the Dust In The Wind single, POKR doesn't bear much resemblance to its predecessor, Leftoverture. Indeed this album returns more to the Masque blueprint, with a bunch of AOR radio-friendly tracks and a limited amount of longer more instrumental tracks, this time no-longer than 7 minutes. A stunning artwork graces its front cover, the same line-up and the same huge sound?. Could they have missed it? Well, some would think of their mega-hit Dust In The Wind as a sell-out, but although it doesn't sound like anything else of the band (on this album or another), it still remains the group's anthem and they never cheapened it to make a sound-alike either.

Opening on the popular hit title track, the album is obviously very commercial and very AOR-ish, despite some surprises like the short Spider, a keyboard extravaganza. Most of the tracks on the opening side are very conventional (even the longer Closet Chronicles) and personally I rarely ever spinned it, back when I had the album. The flipside not only contains DITW, but has the album-longest Hopelessly Human, just about the only place where the band let it rip (besides The Spider thing.), and we're again seeing the band that recorded SFA with its Yes-influence.

Definitely not as good as its predecessor, this has shorter songs and a top forty hit. Just kidding, but it was a disappointment for me (still is) and the start of a long fall, although most die-hard fans will swear up to the end of the next album, Monolith (I do too). Dust is a real must but totally out of the realm of this album, but its presence on the album saves it from being their worst 70's album.

Sean Trane | 3/5 | 2004-2-18

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