KANSAS

Kansas' debut album resembles what happens if an US heartland rock band spent an entire weekend listening to Gabriel-era Genesis and Yes Album-era Yes and decided to give this whole prog thing a go, and whilst the band had a bit more history than that, that's still more or less what you get.

The inclusion of a J.J. Cale cover (Bringing It Back) is symptomatic of the band's American ethos, which is perhaps key to their charm - despite prog being a largely British-dominated affair at this point of time, Kansas didn't fall into the trap of trying too hard to sound like the British bands, and to do so would have been just as risible as, say, third-rate bands affecting Liverpudlian accents and producing reheated Merseybeat back at the height of Beatlemania.

Though it doesn't contain any breakout songs on the level of Carry On Wayward Son, Kansas does at least find each of the band members staking out their roles. Steve Walsh and Robbie Steinhardt take on lead vocals, developing the harmonies which would pay off in a big way over the span of their career, whilst Steve's organ and piano work can go from boogie-woogie stuff to ELP or early Yes-esque at the drop of a hat and Robbie's violin adds an extra string to the band's bow (pun intended) which helps bring gravitas where it is needed.

The Hope/Ehart rhythm section can provide the power to drive the more straight-ahead rock sections whilst tackling more complex time signatures when called to, and Rich Williams' guitar work already has a touch of the thunder he'd show on later releases, whilst Kerry Livgren flits from guitar to keyboards to backing vocals and spreads his talent where it's needed; far from seeming redundant in a band that already has a dedicated guitarist, two lead vocalists, and a keyboard player, his presence in effect gives Kansas additional reserves, able to turbo-charge any part of their sound when it's needed.

What stops the album from going from being a good prog rock release to an essential one? Partially, it's the songwriting; it's alright, but compare it to the material on Leftoverture and Point of Know Return and you can see the band are still honing their craft there. In addition, they seem very slightly more trepidatious about going full prog this time around, and have a bit more in the way of boogie rock in the mix than they would on later releases. Then again, in some respects that works in the band's favour: nobody was mixing prog in with this kind of music in quite this way at the time, after all.