Somewhere to Elsewhere Kansas Artist

{|Kansas|}' 2000 album {|Somewhere to Elsewhere|} is notable because it's the first recording by the original six members in almost 20 years. Joining vocalist {|Steve Walsh|}, guitarist {|Richard Williams|}, vocalist/violinist {|Robby Steinhardt|}, longtime bassist {|Billy Greer|}, and drummer {|Phil Ehart|} are original guitarist/keyboardist {|Kerry Livgren|} and original bassist {|Dave Hope|}. {|Livgren|} wrote all ten songs. {|Somewhere to Elsewhere|} features the innovative dynamics, and long songs, of {|Kansas|}' early work while maintaining a crisply modern production sound. {|Icarus II|} is a marvelously intricate epic about bomber pilots; the bright piano and violin lines give way to blistering heavy metal guitar symbolizing a bombing attack. {|When the World Was Young|} is a groovy rocker with {|Walsh|} contributing a broad range of vocal tones. The richly moving {|The Coming Dawn (Thanatopsis)|} alternates between subdued and bombastic passages with {|Steinhardt|}'s violin leading the way. The complex, nine-minute {|Myriad|} is arguably the most progressive rock moment on the album. {|Greer|} gets his first ever {|Kansas|} lead vocal on the easygoing {|Look at the Time.|} {|Steinhardt|} sings on {|Disappearing Skin Tight Blues,|} an unusual song with clever but uncharacteristic rhyming lyrics and '50s-like vocal group harmonies. {|Distant Vision,|} another nine-minute piece, features {|Livgren|}'s trademark: spiritual lyrics. {|Not Man Big|} has an oddly powerful, loose tempo and bitter lyrics about human folly. A short, goofy singalong acoustic studio jam is included as a hidden bonus track. Technology directly affected the recording of {|Somewhere to Elsewhere|} in a rather unsettling way. {|Walsh|} wasn't in the studio with the rest of the band. He was also working on a solo album at the time so he burned his vocals on CDs and traded them back and forth with {|Livgren|}. Portions of the album's profits will be donated to the World War II Memorial Fund. ~ Bret Adams