In 2020, Kansas returned with their second “new line-up”-album, and their first since 2016. The well-known faces of Steve Walsh, Robbie Steinhardt, Dave Hope and Kerry Livgren are long gone – some of them very long gone – but the current line-up has had five years of establishing themselves through numerous live shows – and, with this release, two albums.
Those who enjoy Kansas on record should be pleased with the way things turned out. Before the new line-up’s return to the studio with The Prelude Implicit in 2016, Kansas had not released a single studio album since the brilliant Somewhere To Elsewhere in 2000!
In addition to the ever-present stalwarts Phil Ehart (drums) and Rich Williams (guitar), the band consists of Billy Greer (bass and vocals since 1985), David Ragsdale (violin and vocals, intermittently since 1991, permanently since 2006), and “new guys” Ronnie Platt (lead vocals and keyboards since 2014), Zak Rizvi (guitars since 2016), and Tom Brislin (keyboards since 2018). Apart from the recent addition of Brislin to their line-up, that means that the same guys have made the last two albums. This signals some stability for the band after years of somewhat fluctuating memberships.
The most pleasing aspect of the present incarnation is their decision to be a creative band again. Two albums since 2016 is pure luxury compared with the last three decades – only two albums were released in the 1990s, and one lone one in 2000 followed by years of silence. They were clearly winding down their recording career, and their return to the studio – and especially the quality with which they are doing it – is nothing less than remarkable.
It can also be directly traced to Steve Walsh’s departure from the band, as he was one of the main people behind not wanting to release new material. It really says a lot that the other Kansas members – Ehart, Greer, Ragsdale, and Williams – formed a side project without Walsh called Native Window in 2008 so that they had an outlet to produce new material as a separate entity. A self-titled album was released in 2009.
Walsh is the voice of Kansas and I was sad to see him go, but the stubbornness about studio work frankly made the change inevitable. It also made it easier to accept.
In fairness to Walsh, after the final departure of Livgren in 2000 he was more or less the sole songwriter in the band. This may have been the bigger issue. He always seemed happy to be one of the cogs in the writing wheel, but writing a full Kansas album all alone is no small burden of responsibility.
If you look at the credits for the new album, all the music and most of the lyrics for every song is composed by either Zak Rizvi (who joined in 2016) or Tom Brislin (who joined in 2018). That is quite remarkable, really, when you think about it: the two newest members wrote a full album that is utterly steeped in the Kansas sound and traditions, and succeeded so fully with it. Of course, having a band with hardened Kansas veterans to play it goes quite a long way too, but still!
When The Prelude Implicit arrived in 2016, it definitely sounded like Kansas. With Rizvi spearheading the creative process, the result was a lot of joint band writing credits and co-writes with input from everybody. As a consequence the album was full of ideas, some admittedly better than others, but it also sounded like a band with genuine inspiration and a drive to deliver something worthy. This comes across, and especially with the benefit of a few more years and stepping away from the impossible expectations a new album carries with it, it really is a tremendous effort.
In a lot of ways, the new album is “second album syndrome” for this particular version of the band. They have to follow the first one that they all did, and ideally not just live up to it, but surpass it.
I immediately felt that the new album has a better balance. What should be kept in mind is that there were always two sides to Kansas, even back in their heyday. You had the out-and-out progressive side of the band (Song For America, Magnum Opus, Journey From Mariabronn) and more straight-ahead melodic rock moments (Dust In the Wind, Hold On, Play the Game Tonight). In truth Kansas embraced both sides. In some of their better moments, they managed to combine both sides in the same songs.
That is what we have here. On The Absence of Presence, Kansas are mixing it up with the progressive and the melodic moments co-existing even within the same songs. The album is a “jack of all trades” in that regard, which may be less desirable to those seeking purer prog moments, or even to fans of the well-crafted pure melodic gems. The album should however be ideal to long-time Kansas fans who look for all things all the time.
One example of this is the title track, which opens the album. This is somewhat of a ballsy move, as the song The Absence of Presence is far from a typical album opener. For starters, it is the longest track on the album by far, at nearly eight and a half minutes. It opens rather quietly with lingering piano notes, but when the violin comes in (with shades of the classic Icarus intro) ahead of the full band, there is no doubt what band you are listening to.
It is a song with a lot of dynamics, with a quiet first verse after the band’s more energetic opening. The song has a lot of ebb and tide, and is classic Kansas. I have seen other reviews be critical of not featuring a more typical/powerful song as the opener. I think there is something to be said for setting the tone, and for as versatile an album as this I see no problem with opening with a versatile song. It is definitely a grower, though, meaning that the song justifies its status as an opener more with time than it might do if you only intend to listen to the album once or twice (like some reviewers no doubt will).
The phrase “absence of presence” is on an overall level about people who might be physically present but emotionally or mentally be somewhere else. That covers the whole spectre from people being chained to their devices to people who are slipping away due to an illness. The song is not specific in that regard, but manage really well to convey the feeling of abandonment and/or loss that could follow from that.
Blinding bright projections
Crash against the wall
I can’t get your attention
No matter how loudly I call
Reaching for connection
To break the silent stare
The absence of presence fills the air
I know you’re here but you’re not really there
The riffage is stronger out of the box in Throwing Mountains, with many hooks on guitar and violin. The song is a strong statement about finding the confidence to stride forth and overcoming obstacles, and the music is equally bold in backing these declarations.
Jets Overhead is one of the more immediate songs on the album. It features several instantly catchy and likeable melody lines, along with soaring riffs on both guitar and violin. It is quite befitting of a song about the difficulty of communicating with someone else (be it another person or a higher power) is made as difficult as it is to talk while jets are flying overhead.
Propulsion 1 is a short-but-very-sweet instrumental with a driving riff and a lot of really cool instrumentation. Rather than being an intro or interlude, it stands very tall on its own feet as a powerful, driving song with plenty of hooks and rhythm changes. The intensity of the double bass drum fireworks alone makes it one of the energy bombs on the album.
Tom Brislin is listed as the composer. “Phil sent me a drum beat,” he said. “He was wondering if it could be used or if it sparked some ideas. It reminded me of something I had written a while ago, and it became a short epic. I am an alumni of Yes, and one of my favourite Yes tracks is Cinema from their ‘90125’ album. It’s just a short instrumental, under three minutes, but it was a real fanfare and a barnstormer. They were just going for it and made it rock. And that is kind of the direction that I was going for. I added the number in the title as well, as that would make me think of a spacecraft. It’d just one of those odd things. That’s the beauty of Kansas – if it’s cool, we can run with it.”
Memories Down the Line is the first of two big melodic ballads on the album. It starts as a piano-driven song with a nostalgic flair and a strong melody, with the band coming in at various points to end up with a solid and powerful finish. Musically probably the least adventurous song on the album, but the quality of the melodies in the song are undeniable.
This was the first song Tom Brislin submitted to the band for consideration. In a YouTube video about the song, he said “I wanted to write something for the people who listened to Kansas back in the day, and maybe had their kids jump on and become fans several years later. And I was really intrigued by the idea of cell memories, where we can pass our knowledge and our traits down through history and through our genetics. But what if the experiences that we go through in our lives gets encoded into our DNA somehow, and people down the line are descendants – great-great-great-great-grandchildren or whatever – what if they had certain aspects of us that were unexplainable? I kind of go in circles with it. And as soon as I did, I said that’s why I want to write a song about it. Otherwise I would just be writing a research paper or something, but songs are good places to explore abstract ideas I think, like that. So I wanted something that had to do with passing the torch, and passing down more than just the colour of your eyes or physical traits that you have.”
In the name of variance, the next track push things more towards the progressive rock end of the scale again with Circus of Illusion. The track is a mix of interesting instrumentation on guitar, violin and keyboards, as well as several time signature changes, but the band never lose their knack for good melodies in the progress. This actually hides a lot of what is happening musically in the background, but it does emerge when you pay attention, making the song that much more interesting to listen to.
This is likely the first song by Kansas to feature a guitar part with significant delay on it as played by people like The Edge (U2) or Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd – think of Run Like Hell). Zak heard a generic song with a similar guitar part, which got him thinking about how Kansas should include something like that in a song.
I spent a lot of time wondering what the lyrics were about, but struggled to pin them down. I felt a lot better about that when I came across an official interview with lead vocalist Ronnie Platt (who wrote them) on the Kansas YouTube channel: “Those lyrics are totally pulled from the ‘ambiguous’ file. That’s one of those songs that however you interpret it, you’re right. I wrote it over a course of time, so your thought process changes when you put something down and you come back to it. But I stayed with a common theme so really turned out nice. But it’s one of those songs that what you apply to it mentally, you’re right!”
Animals On the Roof starts with a lovely and intricate mixture of melodies played on piano and keyboard, which the band picks up on before we get into the verse. The song features a weird syncopated drum beat in the verse, and the rest of the song sprung from that starting point. The bass line was build around that beat, and the rest followed quickly.
Phil Ehart also came up with the title, which is about standing out and being different than all the others. Kansas were never part of the in-crowd, and is still a bit separate from other bands. Tom Brislin took that and came up with the lyrics which are about being outsiders. They have become a prog rock anthem for people who are fans of a type of music that not a lot of other people are fans of. These people go along to the best of their own drum and stand out – like animals on the roof – and embrace being different.
They fall in line and keep on marching through
They never stop to see the world like we do
They don’t believe the flood is coming soon
But we know the truth
We’re animals on the roof
Never is the melodic gem of the album and the second ballad on the album, and in my ears, definitely the better one. It’s a slow-to-mid-paced melodic gem with a simply gorgeous chorus. The lyrics have a melancholy flair of regret at never taking the time to do what they want to do. A lot of people are too busy to appreciate the moments that have passed by, and while you can look back with regret, the song also manages to look forward with optimism and determination to be present in life from here on out. I am sure the words in this song ring true for all of us from time to time, giving it some impact. One of the highlights on the album – and to think that I usually prefer the prog moments!
Never took the time
To find the things inside that I need
Something else always in the way
Never said the things I should have said
So you could know me and what
Makes me breathe
The album ends with The Song the River Sang, which is one of the more symphonic-progressive moments on the album with a distinct flair of Yes. This would not be strange, as the song’s writer (Tom Brislin) was a member of Yes for their Magnification tour.
The song builds up very nicely, but ends on an anticlimactic note with a sudden cut-off. Given how the song is still in a build-up phase towards a climactic end section this is a bit unsatisfactory and really not how I would have liked the album – or at least this song – to end. They say that all’s well that ends well, but even a less than desirable end will not colour how I feel about the rest of the song, and certainly not the album as a whole.
With this album, Kansas has once again proven that they are a creative force to be reckoned with. The new blood in the band have stepped up and provided material (likely with input from the band) admirably, and if they can be so immediately good, imagine how much better this could get when they get a little more settled in the band.
Right now I am enjoying this album a lot, but more than that: this album has actually made me very excited about what might come next.
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