Steve Walsh
Shadowman

The third solo album by the historical singer and keyboardist of Kansas, one of the founding fathers of the progressive metal genre, is intense and satisfying, showcasing him in full form over thirty years after his artistic debut (we are in 2005).

Upon close listening, the magnificent vocal emission of our artist (in his youth) has become imperceptibly and further hoarse, losing a bit of power as well, but grit and passion remain as always, and the resulting dynamics and range, though slightly compromised, are still such that Steve can attack the genre with extreme effectiveness and emotion.

Walsh is not a very prolific author... Throughout his long tenure with the Topeka group, he also suffered from some extended blackouts, which went unnoticed thanks to the presence of colleagues in the formation who were also composers. He has released only one work per decade under his own name, but it is this present one that represents him fully at his best, packed as it is with intense, convincing, diversified pomp/progressive articulated in eight inspired and changing episodes, later expanded to ten in a more recent reissue of the disc.

The sounds are beautiful and powerful albeit excessively digital, it can be felt, for instance, that physical modeling technology was chosen for the electric guitars, which is unable to entirely avoid a somewhat suffocating rendering of the timbres. These works, largely executed by tracing sounds and performances directly inside the personal computer, sound booming, precise, and dynamic, but indeed lack ambient realism. On the other hand, the budget required to keep a group of musicians more or less locked in a studio for a month straight is not remotely comparable to the current possibility of recording much of an album, at the limit, even in one's bedroom (typically excluding voices and drums, which still need a well-equipped and acoustically treated studio to sound professional). Works like these manage to hit the market precisely because today's technology allows for making them almost at home.

As for the rest, there are only compliments to be added, without much need to distinguish between individual pieces because the album is very compact, varied, and tough, consistently inspired. There are very few guitar solos (the talented Joel Kosche of Collective Soul is in action), mostly working on rhythm, with riffs rendered simultaneously harsh and dark by the abrasive simulations of the Mesa Boogie Rectifier, an amplifier that has been absolute trend for many years in creating metal sounds.

Scattered moments of excellence can be identified (in my opinion, of course... each person could point out different ones, assuming the indispensability of taste for these often elaborate and frequently dramatic pieces of music) in the superb acoustic arpeggio of "Pages of Old," in the magnificent gospel choir that supports the breathless evolutions of Walsh's voice on "The River," throughout the super suite "After," filled with great instrumental and melodic passages and very reminiscent of Kansas thanks to the presence of their current violinist David Ragsdale, in the compact 3/4 progression of "Hell Is Full Of Heroes" and finally in the fiery power ballad that titles the work.