Kansas - The Prelude Implicit/Native Window

What does Kansas sound like without founders and songwriters Kerry Livgren and Steve Walsh?  After 1998’s Always Never the Same, Steve Walsh told the band he wasn’t writing any more songs for them.  Luckily for the band, two years later Kerry Livgren wrote an album’s worth of material.  The excellent Somewhere to Elsewhere was the result.  But after that album, Livgren decided he wasn’t going to write for Kansas anymore either.  It took the rest of the band nine years to figure out that if they wanted to make more music, they’d have to write the material themselves.  That’s a tall order for people who don’t write songs.  They had recorded songs from outside songwriters before [Power and In the Spirit of Things], but the results were mixed at best.  The original material from Steve Walsh and Steve Morse was easily of higher quality than what came from outside the band, so I’m sure the band didn’t want to repeat that experience.  So the other four guys decided if they want to make new music, they’d better write it themselves.   

The other four members of Kansas [founders Phil Ehart & Rich Williams, bassist Billy Greer and violinist David Ragsdale] decided to do something outside of Kansas without sounding like Kansas.  Thus was born the band Native Window.  Rich Williams said in an interview that Kansas received feedback from their fans that wherever they went, the opening bands were crappy.  And the thought became “why don’t we become our own opening band”?  And they did just that – Native Window opened shows for Kansas.  In 2009, these four guys exercised some songwriting muscles they didn’t know they had and came up with a ten-song CD, their eponymous debut.  It has a little of everything – blues, bluegrass, folk, and some rock.  Bassist Billy Greer [who BTW is a fine vocalist] sings lead on all but one song [David Ragsdale sings the other one].  There are a lot more acoustic sounds on Native Window than one would hear on a Kansas record. Violins & acoustic guitars are ever-present, but mandolins are new musical colors for these guys.  I also heard something else I never heard on a Kansas album – electric slide guitar.  It is a great-sounding album.  As befitting a smaller ensemble than Kansas, the sound is more intimate.  I won’t do a song-by-song review of Native Window because I like it all.   My only complaint about the album is that it is only 41-minutes long.  The added benefit of making this album was it prepared Kansas for the time when their songwriter left the band, which Steve Walsh did in 2014.

Kansas, The Band – With Steve Walsh since the 1990s, Kansas had been a five-piece band [one guitar, bass, drums, violin, keyboards].  Walsh did double duty on vocals and keys.  Now he’s been replaced by two people – singer Ronnie Platt and keyboardist Dave Manion, and the band returned to a two-guitar lineup with the addition of guitarist Zak Rizvi.  Now a seven-piece, the Kansas sound benefits from the bigger lineup.  With a bigger lineup came a return to the Seventies-era vintage Kansas sound.  Rich Williams doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting by himself anymore.  With three new members also came new musical ideas and a willingness to commit them to tape.  When both Kerry Livgren and Steve Walsh were in the band, there was a bit of schizophrenia to the band.  Kerry Livgren wrote the more sprawling, epic, progressive tunes [think Song for America] while Walsh wrote the more concise, harder-rocking songs [think Paradox, Lightning’s Hand, or Sparks of the Tempest].  That’s an oversimplification of their Seventies sound as there were exceptions to the rule [Carry On Wayward Son is definitely NOT proggy].  But there were definitely two sides to the band.

After Walsh took the helm of the band in 1985, the band went in a more “hard rock” direction [having a guitarist like Steve Morse didn’t hurt, either].  When the original band regrouped for 2000’s Somewhere to Elsewhere, Livgren wrote all the songs, where the arrangements were more intricate and three of the songs clock in over seven minutes.  Contrast Somewhere to Elsewhere with Walsh’s solo album Glossolalia, which was recorded at the same time as Somewhere to Elsewhere.  Walsh’s album as pretty close to metal, and some of the songs [most especially Smackin’ the Clowns] are downright head-spinning [in a good way].  I digress, but I do so to make a point.  Left to their own devices, the music the band created on The Prelude Implicit sounds like a direction Steve Walsh would have gone in [and did to a certain extent] with Glossolalia.  The sound is harder with more of an edge.  Three of the songs from The Prelude Implicit clock in over six minutes.  Those are the songs I like the most.  The more the band plays and the less Ronnie Platt sings, the more I like it.   Which brings me to…

Ronnie Platt – I’m not sure what to think of this guy.  I’ve read many online reviews where the reviewers just love his voice.  I’m not convinced [yet].  A great performance by the band could be offset with lame vocals.  Sometimes this is the case with Ronnie Platt.  He has the unenviable task of following Steve Walsh.  Walsh’s vocal gifts have been diminished over time, and sometimes it was painful to hear him live.  When he retired from the band in 2014, he himself said it was “time for him to go.”  I can hear where the band would think there’s enough of the old Steve Walsh to please the hardcore fans, but enough of his own voice to make him just a little different.  As for Ronnie Platt’s vocals, when he sings in lower registers he’s pretty good – I have no complaints there.  But when he goes higher, he sounds like a combination of being somewhat robotic to being somewhat whiny.  To these ears, sometimes his vocals are cringe-worthy.  I’m trying very hard to like this guy.  I don’t dislike him, but I’m just not sold on him yet.  Oddly enough, I’ve heard clips on YouTube of him singing the older tunes, and he nails them.  He channels Steve Walsh just fine, but it’s the original material on this new album that gives me pause.  There are songs on The Prelude Implicit where I think bassist Billy Greer would have sung them better [he did have the main mic on Summer].

The Songs

With This Heart – When George Martin produced the Beatles, he said that he always wanted to begin an album with what he called “potboilers” – songs that would get your attention immediately.  Kansas did that with Leftoverture [Carry On Wayward Son] and Point of Know Return [the title song].  With This Heart is not one of those songs.

Visibility Zero – This song has more energy than With This Heart.  It’s starting to grow on me.  I’m learning to live with the vocals on the chorus.

The Unsung Heroes – A ballad, and a boring one at that.  Next!

Rhythm in the Spirit – Twin guitar harmonies begin this one.  Now we’re getting somewhere!  Then the robotic whine begins and kills the song.  This one had such promise…

Refugee – An acoustic guitar and violin intro.  Interesting so far…then Ronnie Platt sings.  But this time, it works.  He sounds good here.  Signs of life - I like this one.

The Voyage of Eight Eighteen – This one clocks in at 8:18.  Kansas is in more familiar territory here.  The band finally gets to stretch out and remind people what set Kansas apart from other American bands.  Things are looking up here.

Camouflage – Another long-ish song at 6:42.  A keeper.

Summer – Bassist Billy Greer sings lead.  A higher-tempo song, this one has a bit of a Celtic feel to it in the intro.  A short, concise rock song at 4:07.

Crowded Isolation – The best song on the album.  Kansas knocks this one out of the park.

Section 60 – The album ends with an instrumental, tribute to our men and women in uniform.  This closer is another outstanding track. 

But as they say on TV, “wait, there’s more!”  The deluxe edition has two bonus tracks.  I like one – the other I can do without.

Bonus tracks:

Home on the Range – Yes, where the deer and the antelope play.  All I can say is “what were these guys thinking”?  Whiny Ronnie is back on this one.

Oh Shenandoah – This one from the Great American Songbook is played as an instrumental, and it’s a fine piece.

On a scale of 1 to 5 [5 being “buy this album now!”], I give The Prelude Implicit a 3.  I give Native Window a 5.  Between the two albums, there is plenty of good music to be heard.