In 2016, America's eternally popular prog juggernaut Kansas returned to studio recording for the first time since their 2000 reunion outing Somewhere to Elsewhere. The resultant The Prelude Implicit also marked debuts for lead vocalist/keyboardist Ronnie Platt, and guitarist Zak Rizvi. Remarkably, it reflected the band's vintage sonic signature and songwriting/arranging chops without craven nostalgia. Four years on, Absence of Presence builds on the strengths of its predecessor, yet goes far deeper into the prog aesthetic…

Sail On: The 30th Anniversary Collection 1974-2004 is certainly the most lovingly crafted of the many Kansas retrospectives. Featuring 27 album cuts that range from classic FM hits like "Dust in the Wind" and "Point of No Return" to fan favorites such as "Song for America," and a 16-track DVD that collects numerous television appearances, videos, and live recordings, Sail On seems to be the definitive tome of the Midwest art rock band's very existence…

This live symphonic DVD celebrates the 35th anniversary of the release of the band's 1974 self-titled debut album. The show was filmed on February 7, 2009 in HD mixed in 5.1 surround sound at Washburn University's White Concert Hall…

Sony's Sail On: The 30th Anniversary Collection 1974-2004 is certainly the most lovingly crafted of the many Kansas retrospectives. Featuring 27 album cuts that range from classic FM hits like "Dust in the Wind" and "Point of No Return" to fan favorites such as "Song for America," a 35-page booklet that includes extensive liner notes and career-spanning photos, and a 16-track DVD that collects numerous television appearances, videos, and live recordings, Sail On seems to be the definitive tome of the Midwest art rock band's very existence…

With a legendary career spanning nearly five decades, KANSAS has firmly established itself as one of America’s iconic classic rock bands. This "garage band" from Topeka released their debut album in 1974 after being discovered by Wally Gold, who worked for Don Kirshner, and have gone on to sell more than 30 million albums worldwide.

A great album cover should give an indication of the sound of an album, or at least its sensibility. Happily, that much is indeed true with Steve Walsh's solo debut, Schemer-Dreamer, which sports what very well could be the greatest album cover in rock history…

Kerry Livgren was one of the founding members and primary writers for the '70s supergroup Kansas. Having grown up listening to the works of classical composers (notably the Romantics such as Liszt and Wagner), Livgren's songwriting technique has always tended toward orchestration – with an ear for the majestic or the symphonic…

Kansas' third album, Masque, is a lyrically dark effort courtesy of guitarist/keyboardist Kerry Livgren's brooding songwriting. Musically, Masque foreshadows the tight melodies and instrumental interplay on the next two albums, Leftoverture and Point of Know Return, which together serve as the peak of Kansas' vision. The band deserves more respect than it gets for incorporating British hard rock and progressive rock to become the only U.S. progressive rock band of note during the genre's 1970s heyday. Robbie Steinhardt's violin work certainly helped give Kansas a distinctive sound. The liner notes indicate Masque is a "concept album" thanks to the title's definition: "A disguise of reality created through a theatrical or musical performance." Vocalist/keyboardist Steve Walsh's "It Takes a Woman's Love (To Make a Man)" is the leadoff track, and it's atypical of the rest of the album. The song is a fairly basic yet groovy pop/rock tune about musicians' loneliness on the road, but it is spiced up with some saxophone lines.

For a library user these multi-album sets are very handy! This contains the first five albums of the American Symphonic / Hard Prog legend Kansas, covering their best era. As usual, the original vinyl covers are duplicated as they are, which causes some uncomfort if one wishes to read the texts…

The summer of 2020 marks the release of The Absence of Presence, Kansas’s sixteenth studio album. The wide-ranging progressive rock album, released by InsideOut Music, follows-up 2016’s The Prelude Implicit, which debuted at number 14 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart.

John Elefante, who had joined Kansas for 1982's Vinyl Confessions, dominated their next album, Drastic Measures, writing six of nine songs. Elefante seemed a little unnerved by the new attention ("Everybody's My Friend"), while bandleader Kerry Livgren seemed burned out by the pressure to sell records ("Mainstream"). In that attempt, Kansas turned toward more of a hard rock/heavy metal sound…