Steve Walsh - Glossolalia

WARNING! People who suffer from a heart condition or severe depression should listen to this CD with the greatest of caution!!!

When I first popped this disc in my CD player, I was waiting at a bus stop near the post office where I had received it. By the time the bus arrived, I was barely able to remain standing! I had been warned that this solo album by Kansas front man Steve Walsh would be a mind-boggling experience, and my fellow fans were right! I was stunned, in awe, and totally overwhelmed by the end of the first song!

I’m known for being critical of Steve’s songwriting skills. Perhaps I compare him to Kerry Livgren unfairly. Steve has not always had the same depth and insight as his former band-mate in the distant past. However, all that has changed in recent years. I am very pleased with Steve’s efforts on the Freaks of Nature and Always Never the Same CDs, but now he has gone a step, no, a LEAP, further to search the deepest, darkest depths of his soul. So much pain and agony are purged on this album, creating his most powerful material ever!

It’s very hard to describe Glossolalia because it’s impossible to categorize its songs. It has a little bit of everything, from alternative to country to rap to where it turns you inside out and upside down! Fasten your seat belts... it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

The first song is the title track, which rips your brain into shreds immediately with its sharp death-metal edge. Before you have time to recover, you are sent into emotional despair in “Serious Wreckage”, and then tossed onto a dance floor in a disco-rap thriller called “Heart Attack”. Listen to the way Steve’s voice cracks in “Serious Wreckage” (a song about a drunk driver who has killed a child) with the line "Don’t tell me it’s alright, don’t tell me it’s going to be fine." If you still have any sanity left, you suddenly realize this is Steve Walsh...sweet, little "Dust-In-the-Wind" Stevie from Kansas! We always knew he had a dark side, but this is very extreme!

The song “Kansas” continues the emotional roller coaster as a beautiful, eerie tribute to American Indians. The music and the mood in this song are amazing, especially the piano and drums. In fact, the whole composition is breathtaking! Its spooky ending shocked me at first, but now I’m used to it. Don’t play this song around small children; the angry voice will give them nightmares! Read the lyrics to them instead. (Or even better, read the book "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" to them!)

While the shock of Kansas still resonates in your bones, the countryish “Nothing” brings you down real fast. It is so bleak and depressing, you almost want to skip it, but by now you’re addicted, sucked into the twisted anguish that Steve is expressing. This song will make you feel helpless, unable to ease his pain.

Next we have my favorite track on the album, “Haunted Man”! This song pulled me in the first time I heard it because of the deep, tortured lyrics, but when I noticed him screaming in the background, I literally gasped out loud! (Lord knows what my fellow bus riders thought of me, sitting there with my eyes round as saucers and my jaw on the floor!) The desperation in this song is very compelling and traumatic. If you are an empathetic person, you will have a difficult time holding back tears.
If that one doesn’t convince you of Steve’s deep misery, get ready for a punch in the stomach! “Smacking the Clowns”, a song about a circus burning down, is a tale that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You will be on the floor in a fetal position by the time his voice cracks during the line..."Maybe the old cliché isn’t far from true. Maybe there’s a silver lining." I go into a cold sweat just thinking about this song, even when I’m not playing it! I am totally serious and sincere when I say that this is the best piece of work Steve has ever written in his entire musical career!

Finally, we get some relief with a change of mood! “That’s What Love’s All About” is a fun, funky, hard-rocking love song that makes you want to jump up and dance! (I actually do in my living room!) It’s a very sexy song, and it gives me a delicious chill up my spine whenever I hear it. Play this song LOUD...it deserves to be heard by your neighbors!

Just when you’re hoping that the positive vibe will carry on, along comes a depressing, bittersweet ballad to bring you down again. By the time you are halfway through the bluesy “Mascara Tears”, you won’t know whether to commit suicide or run out and have sex with the nearest suitable partner! Your mind will be lost, caught in a vortex that offers no escape! Great piano work here, by the way. Steve has never lost his great keyboarding skills!

Finishing out the album is a more relaxing, sensual song called “Rebecca”, a nod to a great novel of the same name. I especially love the gurgling sounds at the beginning, as if Steve actually were underwater..very chilling! (I recommend the original Hitchcock movie to curious listeners.)

I can’t end this review without giving great applause to Mike Slamer, the lead guitarist on this remarkable album! What cave has he been living in, that the world knows virtually nothing about him?! How can any human being play guitar the way he does on “Smacking the Clowns”, much less any of the other songs on Gloss? (Mike Slamer also played guitar for Steve's former band, Streets, and on the Seventh Key albums, sung by Kansas bassman, Billy Greer.)

Congratulations, you have survived Glossolalia! As a prize, you get your sanity back, but you are a changed person forever. This album is much better than a day at Disneyland! With one amazing song after another, you are laughing one minute and crying the next. I try not to play this too often to keep its shock value fresh, but sometimes, I just can’t help myself...it’s too addictive!

More than ever now, Steve Walsh has my deepest respect and admiration, not just as a musician and songwriter, but also as a human being. I used to roll my eyes while listening to his cheesy songs on the Kansas albums Power and In the Spirit of Things, but the man has totally grown, changed, and matured with Glossolalia. I urge potential listeners to be prepared for its intensity!