Kansas- Song For America

Certainly the most successful of the American Progressive Rock bands, Kansas hailed from Topeka, Kansas (surprise surprise), and incorporated some of that American heartland into their music for a unique sound. Song for America, their sophmore effort, came to store shelves in late 1974. They featured a lineup of Rich Williams (guitar), Phil Ehart (drums), Kerry Livgren (guitar/keyboards), Steve Walsh (vocals/keyboards), Dave Hope (bass), and Robby Stienhardt (violin). While combination of country music and prog does seem a bit strange, the result is quite interesting, and quite varied.

The album opens with "Down the Road", which really doesn't have much progressive about it at all. It's just straight country rock, and if that strikes our fancy, it's a decent song. Otherwise, you can skip it. The real goods start with the title track. Over the course of 10 minutes, it moves through some symphonic rock structures, but with a strong presence from the violin. The vocals leave a little to be desired, but it has some nice chord shifts and progressions. The following track, "Lamplight Symphony", is the most progressive one on the album. Bass dominates the track, and the keyboard melody reminds me of a alternate reality Genesis. After that, it's time to flip the record over.

Next up is "Lonely Street", which again is little more than a straight up rocker. It's more heavy metal than country rock, though. "The Devil Game " is really just more of the same, and both tracks aren't of great interest to the Prog fans. However, Song for America comes back for the grand finale with all jets on. "Incomudro / Hymn to the Atman" consists of 12 minutes of The American take on Yes. There's bombastic keyboards à la Rick Wakeman, distinctive bass à la Chris Squire, and a general fantasy feel. There's also strangely some 80's sounding synths, and I'm not sure how that happened.

As mentioned before, although always labeled Progressive Rock, I don't see this record as really fitting the mold. While its got some Prog songs, there's tracks on here that wouldn't be out of place on a Lynyrd Skynyrd record. I don't mind Country Rock, but I don't like misleading labels. Then of course, there's the issue that compared to many many other albums in the genre, The Prog tracks are a bit bland, retracing old territory but with violin added.

Not a bad album per se, but Song for America would appeal more to country rock or hard rock fans than hardcore progsters. C- as a Prog Record, B- as an overall record.