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AD - Art Of The State (1985)

Posted By: hill0

Date: 13 Sep 2015 08:13:10

This was the best of the AD releases. A superb diversion from Kansas without being a copy cat band. Opening with the soaring All Creation Sings to the imploring Lead Me to Reason Livgren ropes in others who are able to showcase a side of Kerry that diverges from his accomplishments in Kansas. The Fury's power melds into Kerry's social commentary on Progress. With Up from the Wasteland serving as a fitting conclusion. If you wondered what Kerry Livgren was doing in between Kansas and Proto-Kaw start here.

In 1985 AD was moved from the CBS regular line to Sparrow records which housed the Christian artists. It was too bad this wasn't the first release because they may have had much better success with this one. While it still retains the techno pop flavor from Time Line there are far more interesting instrumental passages here. Also this is a much more mature recording as it is the groups second (and last as this unit) attempt. Staring with All Creation Sings we get some of that pop flavor mentioned but also a very creative section after the break with a little syncopated musical break. The second track We Are the Men is one of these weird little ditties that Kerry pulls out of his brain now and then. Using just a very pedestrian drum beat he piles on layers of mostly vocal harmonies and a nice guitar solo. Sort of like Not Man Big from Somewhere to Elsewhere. One of Warren Ham's better vocal efforts of all the things he has done with Kerry.
Some of the other highlights here are certainly The Fury and Up from the Wasteland. The Fury being the wrath of an angry God holding above the sinful earth. It will burst but know one knows when. I really like the blusey guitar, keyboards on this and Michael Gleason's Walshian vocals here. There are some interesting percussion moments as the song builds up to a great finale. This song is in the spirit of The Mask of The Great Deceiver from Seeds of Change. Up From the Wasteland starts out with an almost soundtrack feel to it with some great Keyboards and piano. A very emotional vocal by Michael Gleason leads us into an almost hymlike chorus. A super guitar solo by Livgren leads us into the accepella choral part . Very nicely done! One other highlight for me is the song The Only Way to Have a Friend. Done in a R&B style the song is powerful and strong. Great guitar and bass on this one with a strong vocal by Ham. A very different kind of song for Livgren. Most of the other songs are pleasant but nothing groundbreaking.
All in all a pretty good effort from AD certainly their best. Remembering that we are still stuck in the barren 80's I think this is 4 star.
Review by Garion81

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Tracklist:

01. All Creation Sings
02. We Are The Men
03. Lead Me To Reason
04. The Only Way To Have A Friend
05. Games Of Chance
06. The Fury
07. Progress
08. Heartland
09. Zion
10. Up From The Wasteland

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.0 beta 3 from 29. August 2011

EAC extraction logfile from 21. March 2014, 23:09

AD / Art Of The State

Used drive : Optiarc DVD+-RW AD-7717H Adapter: 0 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 768 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 4:26.50 | 0 | 19999
2 | 4:26.50 | 4:45.72 | 20000 | 41446
3 | 9:12.47 | 4:01.10 | 41447 | 59531
4 | 13:13.57 | 4:19.10 | 59532 | 78966
5 | 17:32.67 | 4:21.13 | 78967 | 98554
6 | 21:54.05 | 5:38.30 | 98555 | 123934
7 | 27:32.35 | 4:43.70 | 123935 | 145229
8 | 32:16.30 | 3:46.25 | 145230 | 162204
9 | 36:02.55 | 3:26.27 | 162205 | 177681
10 | 39:29.07 | 4:26.35 | 177682 | 197666

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename C:\0\Sket4er\AD - Art Of The State (1985) 1998 [flac]\AD - Art Of The State.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 2.0 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 86A0B832
Copy CRC 86A0B832
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

Track 1 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [02DF660E], AccurateRip returned [46CBF444] (AR v2)
Track 2 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [76864E69], AccurateRip returned [62EAFCF4] (AR v2)
Track 3 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [86B99DBF], AccurateRip returned [1B3A7C2C] (AR v2)
Track 4 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [704B7860], AccurateRip returned [1EF5F5BC] (AR v2)
Track 5 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [4962C3B5], AccurateRip returned [B2DFC012] (AR v2)
Track 6 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [F0C1405B], AccurateRip returned [ED305677] (AR v2)
Track 7 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [67CF4B6E], AccurateRip returned [244FDA56] (AR v2)
Track 8 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 3) [F9B87E99], AccurateRip returned [C33C96C8] (AR v2)
Track 9 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 4) [67D46738], AccurateRip returned [D5327662] (AR v2)
Track 10 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 3) [23B9B2CD], AccurateRip returned [8CC2D782] (AR v2)

No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

End of status report

==== Log checksum 8A392400A44C0B4DF7E1E08FB63A9786832F95CA1A7CB350F2FFEE55CDB06541 ====

Personnel

- Michael Gleason / guitar, keyboards, vocals
- Warren Ham / saxophone, flute, vocals
- Dave Hope / bass
- Dennis Holt / drums & percusson
- Kerry Livgren / guitar, keyboards

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