By the time of their eighth album,
Audio-Visions
,
Kansas
had entered the post-platinum solo-album phase of the typical successful
rock
group's career. Leaders
Kerry Livgren
and
Steve Walsh
were devoting time to making their own records, and
was becoming a part-time occupation. The two divided up the songwriting chores on
, alternating
Livgren
's always spiritual and by now explicitly religious lyrical sentiments and ornate musical structures with
Walsh
's earthier and harder-rocking concerns.
's Christian-themed
"Hold On"
("Outside the door He is waiting") made the Top 40, and
's
"Got to Rock"
was a singles-chart entry, but nothing here matched the music from the group's late-'70s heyday.
was the last of seven straight
albums to go gold or platinum and the last album made by the group's most successful lineup. In 1981,
quit. ~ William Ruhlmann