IN THE SPIRIT OF THINGS

By 1988, the record companies were pretty much giving up on reviving rock bands from the 70's. Kansas' record label still decided to give the band another chance, but since MCA dropped most of its classic rock bands after the release of "In the Spirit of Things" and really only made some half-hearted attempts to promote this record. I have to wonder, however, if it would have made much of a difference. Kansas was no longer sounding much like it's classic sound since they had catered to the whims of the record label and watered down their music so much that it wasn't anything close to progressive anymore. It was just very commercial sounding hard rock. Even the violin, the one signature instrument of Kansas, was missing. Really, the only thing that sounded like the Kansas of old was Steve Walsh's vocals, and they were getting a bit annoying by this time.

Kansas by this time was turned into a Top 40 style pop/rock band anyway, and this doesn't change at all in the album "In the Spirit of Things". All this album is, is a loose-concept album with a bunch of mediocre songs. Nothing here is really that interesting. To top it all off, there were no real hits to come off of this record, and even if the band was catering to the whims of the record label, it ended up bombing quite miserably. Even a lot of long-time Kansas fans were unaware of it's existence. Other than Walsh, there is really nothing here that suggests that this is Kansas. Dorothy and Toto must have been disappointed and the words "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" never rung sadder.

The highest points of the album come in the tracks "Ghosts", "One Big Sky" and "Rainmaker". But even these tracks are quite lackluster when compared to "Leftoverture" or anything released prior to that. Beyond that, there is really nothing on this album to salvage as one uninteresting track after another ticks itself off. There just isn't much here to get excited about.

The poor performance of this record brought in a big dry spell for the band who wouldn't release another album until 1995 with "Freaks of Nature", which was at least touted as a real reunion of the band. The band did remain active through these years, however, but lived off of touring 2nd rate venues and playing old hits of the 70s. Fortunately, this would not, however, be the end of the band as the did at least revive some of the spark in later albums. But, at the time of this album, things looked rather bleak for the band and no one really expected anything from them at this point.