Kansas, courtesy. Over the course of its five decades, prog rocker group Kansas has experimented with just about all the stage production gimmicks. The band, which got its start in Topeka, Ka. in 1973, has tried lasers, pyrotechnics and even a stunt so dangerous that KISS passed it up. Kansas…

Kansas, “The Absence of Presence.” Progressive rock typically revels in complexity, aspirations to higher things both musically and thematically, and expert musicianship. Arguably the most durable and influential American prog-rock group, Kansas, checks off all those boxes on its new album, The Absence of Presence, the venerable band’s 16th…