Audio CD review:
Kansas - Drastic Measures

Kansas - Drastic Measures

Band: Kansas Title: Drastic Measures Rating: Release Date: 27 February, 1996 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Fight Fire With Fire 2: Everybody's My Friend 3: Mainstream 4: Andi 5: Going Through The Motions 6: Get Rich 7: Don't Take Your Love Away 8: End Of The Age 9: Incident On The Bridge

Customer Reviews Last Great Kansas Album Not in the style of the original band, but the lyrics of several songs are among the best of the band; that's what makes this album special. As a fan of the original Kansas, I love the lyrics and the music in this album. I wish the members in this album plus Steinhart could do an album. Oh well, wishful thinking. . Unbelievably bad !! This is truly the nadir of Kansas' career. The one star is for the lead-off track; all the rest get zero. While albums six, seven and eight are not in the same league composition-wise with The First Five, they certainly can be critiqued on their own merits and stand up quite well against other albums of the same time-frame. This abomination, however, not only fails by that criteria, but disgraces the overall legacy of the band as well. I recently purchased all the 2001 & 2004 remasters as I only had one, and in the course of listening to the whole catalogue in order from the first, imagine my stunned surpise when I got to this. Naturally a band evolves and changes over time if they have a career that spans more than a couple years, and John Elefante's writing on the prior record was quite good. Those tunes grow on me the more I listen to it. But what happened here? A real stinker by the standards of any band, much less one of the calibre of Kansas. Avoid. . Kansas - John Elefante Takes Over Founding member Robbie Steinhardt left (or was fired) prior to this album and the band moved on as a 5 piece unit. "Drastic Measures" had the unique distinction to be the first Kansas album without a violin. In the end the album would be the last from the John Elefante era of the band. Kansas would basically cease to exist for more than a decade after this album and tour. John Elefante (and his songwriting partner, brother Dino) really comes to the fore on this disc writing the lion's share of the material. Many of the songs deal with the impact of sudden fame. Kerry Livgren only contributes three songs all in the with mainly Christian oriented lyrics. The single "Fight Fire With Fire" was a great rocker and managed to get both radio and MTV airplay. I also like "Everybody's My Friend", and "Mainstream" the longest track on the disc. The rest is all pleasant enough, but does not come close to what the band had previosly achieved. Overall for Kansas fans it is worth owning, but if you are a more casual fan there are many other albums that I would purchase prior to this one. . You can see a complete list of all Kansas discography, or go back to the Kansas tabs