Along with Virginia's , Kansas' is one of the absolute treasures of underground American , and listeners stumbling upon their incredibly raw 1980 debut effort, , with its basement-level production standards and almost foreign sonic language, will understand how aficionados feel upon first exposure to : A mixture of disorientation and revelation. Although it was recorded for a pittance, in the depths of Wichita's winter wonderland/wasteland of 1979, this wholly self-financed effort already proved that, if nothing else, vocalist/guitarist , bassist , and drummer comprised a potent and well-rehearsed power trio -- even if not quite all of their musical stars had aligned yet. In fact, hardly got off to an auspicious start, since overlong opener was a jittery, funky hard rocker, spiced with hand claps and little else, and the more dynamic actually distracted from 's first impressive show of guitar heroics with a positively banal, zoological lyric ("The rats are in the cellar, the mice are in the cage, the cat is in the toilet, the dog is in a rage...?"). Truly astonishing, however, was the intro to next tune which combined spacey feedback sound effects with a freaky sci-fi recital about distant planets, into a direct and blatant revision of 's ; only to suddenly transform into an irresistible heavy rocker, wipe the album's entire, mottled slate thus far clean, and help snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. This feat was then confirmed by the wholly earthbound, -inspired growl of -- an urban driving anthem par excellence -- and, following a mild misstep into the acoustic fantasy of another well-constructed, if derivative, example of space epic-era via the 13-minute In short, a rather mixed outing. is as likely to thrill as disappoint, depending on one's expectations, but continues to grow ever more fascinating, given time and perspective, to scholars. [Long out of print, was finally reissued in 2004 by , as a two-disc set also featuring its 1982 successor -- both of them recovered from vinyl sources, in lieu of the master recordings.] ~ Eduardo Rivadavia