The only reason I know it's out is coincidence: went to Barnes & Noble to return a superflous book of manga purchased on the last trip there. They didn't have anything I wanted in manga, so I looked at their smallish music and movies section. Having picked out something, I browsed the selection of vinyl recordings for Parsons and Kansas, just for old times' sake...and saw the Kansas logo on a cover I didn't recognize. "The first KANSAS studio album in 16 years!" said the sticker on it.
Apparently I started making "eep eep" noises.
Anyway, came home with the deluxe CD version, and I'm listening to it now. So far, it sounds a lot like Freaks of Nature mainly because Livgren didn't write any of the songs and David Ragsdale is present, playing violin.
Missing: Steve Walsh, Robby Steinhart, Kerry Livgren, Dave Hope. But it sounds like Kansas. Whoever is doing lead vocals sounds enough like Steve Walsh that I'm highly surprised not to see his name in the credits.
I don't care. Haven't got new music from any of my old favorites in a long enough time that I'll take it. Hell, I bought four Parsons albums which had no tracks written by Eric Woolfson, so f it.
