New Rush Singles

[The Stormbringer]

Diaper Trails = uke:

I suppose we can't find a common denominator talking about Rush when your favourite album is "Caress Of Steel", which is a HUGE yawner for me except for "Bastille Day" and "The Necromancer". In my opinion, the first truly brillant Rush album as a whole is "Permanent Waves"... their 70s albums usually had some breathtaking stuff and lots of generic 70s rock filler stuff.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

I suppose we can't find a common denominator talking about Rush when your favourite album is "Caress Of Steel", which is a HUGE yawner for me except for "Bastille Day" and "The Necromancer". In my opinion, the first truly brillant Rush album as a whole is "Permanent Waves"... their 70s albums usually had some breathtaking stuff and lots of generic 70s rock filler stuff.

I love the 80's Rush.

It is just a different element and flavor than their more "epic" 70's stuff. While I agree that Rush's first two albums didn't have a lot of originality(except for a few tracks off of the 2nd like "By-Tor And The Snow Dog"), I feel like they really came into their own with Caress; and truly became a progressive behemoth(it's nothing short of a criminal shame that that record didn't do well for them).

Let's face it; Rush left their blues scales by the wayside and went with a more classically influenced approach on, for instance, "The Fountain Of Lamneth". Now how could one not love and appreciate that? That album really has a magic to it that is pointless for me to try to explain. Either you get it or you don't, I guess.

 

[The Stormbringer]

Either you get it or you don't, I guess.

Might be. I'm not a fan of classically-tinged music at all and find "The Fountain Of Lamneth" to be the worst longer-than-average song Rush have ever written. It drags like hell, most of the transitions are very rough, there's the cliché of the drum solo in mid-song and many of the main melodies seem very cheesy to me ("paaaaanacea, liquid grace"... ugh).
"The Necromancer" is much better in my opinion, mostly because it's more focused and its end actually feels like the finale of a story. Rush managed the same with "2112", "Cygnus X-1" (their best extended song in my opinion) and "Hemispheres" (which I've never been a big fan of to be honest), but the ending to "The Fountain..." always felt very anticlimatic and flat to me. Different strokes, I guess.

 

[Kenneth R.]

"Classically-tinged" usually ends up poorly conceived.

There is no bad Rush album. The same cannot be said of DT, despite acknowledgment that IW and A are solid.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Might be. I'm not a fan of classically-tinged music at all and find "The Fountain Of Lamneth" to be the worst longer-than-average song Rush have ever written. It drags like hell, most of the transitions are very rough, there's the cliché of the drum solo in mid-song and many of the main melodies seem very cheesy to me ("paaaaanacea, liquid grace"... ugh).
"The Necromancer" is much better in my opinion, mostly because it's more focused and its end actually feels like the finale of a story. Rush managed the same with "2112", "Cygnus X-1" (their best extended song in my opinion) and "Hemispheres" (which I've never been a big fan of to be honest), but the ending to "The Fountain..." always felt very anticlimatic and flat to me. Different strokes, I guess.

Don't forget that Caress Of Steel was Rush's most rushed(no pun intended) album. They had very serious time constraints when they made that album and they wrote much of it on the road. I too feel that "The Fountain Of Lamneth" could've used one more part to it. But it still works as it comes full circle(might've even influenced SX on "The Odyssey" yeah?). Interestingly enough though, "Cygnus X-1" originally came from the Caress Of Steel sessions; they just couldn't iron out the kinks of lumping it in the right place and time(which probably explains why "I Think I'm Going Bald" was thrown in when it doesn't really fit the overall tone of the album[kinda like Sabbath's "Paranoid" was tossed in]). But yeah, obviously the Moog synthesizer was a later embellishment for Cygnus. Now imagine what Caress would've been like if they had time.

How could you not love Hemispheres??? To me, it is them at their most storybook and advanced. I rank the Rush epics like this:

The Fountain Of Lamneth
The Necromancer
Cygnus X-1(the last two minutes of this song are downright dangerous)
Hemispheres
Natural Science(too bad we'll never hear Sir Gawain and the Green Knight)
2112(though lyrically it IS the best)
Jacob's Ladder
Xanadu
The Camera Eye
By-Tor and the Snow Dog

*If the Fear Trilogy had been on one album it would be in the Top 5 easily.

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

I suppose we can't find a common denominator talking about Rush when your favourite album is "Caress Of Steel", which is a HUGE yawner for me except for "Bastille Day" and "The Necromancer". In my opinion, the first truly brillant Rush album as a whole is "Permanent Waves"... their 70s albums usually had some breathtaking stuff and lots of generic 70s rock filler stuff.

I agree with this, but unfortunately we are in the minority. I actually think Hemispheres through Counterparts was Rush's strongest period.

 

[Postulate]

"Classically-tinged" usually ends up poorly conceived.

There is no bad Rush album. The same cannot be said of DT, despite acknowledgment that IW and A are solid.

No bad Rush album? Damn, I don't think even most hardcore Rush fans would make that claim. I listened to Vapor Trails recently and thought after a couple tracks, "why am I listening to this?" Some of their music is just not that enjoyable, I dunno, and when they try to do all these shortened songs, they don't come off as rocking or feel-good like they do with some bands - they sound forced, and like I said before, sort of gross to me for some reason. Like a sweat-stained shirt.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Unfortunately the only one in that band remotely interested in sticking to the "classic rock" formula is Alex Lifeson; but sadly he is outnumbered 2-to-1. My gripe is mainly with Geddy Lee who after Counterparts wanted to emulate the sound of bands like U2, Tool, and Radiohead instead of doing what they do best.

They started pawning off their next releases under the sales pitch of "organic"uke:. Now whenever I see that word I hear the same amelodic droning and I just want to sit on a butterknife. I've come to think of that word organic and realize that I hate everything about it; organic music, organic food, organic people.

I fucking hate, HATE that word.

 

[TheRelic]

No bad albums? Rush is far and away my favorite band and in my opinion, the greatest band to grace this earth. But listen to Test For Echo, Vapor Trails, and Presto. Terrible albums as a whole. There are some stellar tracks still (Driven, Earthshine, The Pass, respectively), but for the most part they suck balls.

Snakes And Arrows was a step in the right direction. From the moment I first heard it I knew it would be considered a Rush classic in years to come. These two new tracks have that same S&A hard-rock vibe, but also a touch of Signals. Combining those two elements make for some epic songs. The string-synth section of BU2B is testament to that.

As for me, Power Windows is a masterpiece of an album, untouchable even for them. But I sense good things for Clockwork Angels and I'm optimistic that it'll be at least an 8/10 album

 

[razoredge]

Painful to hear you experts talk about Rushs early music... like you were around, "generic 70's rock", its a yawn, wasnt origional, lyrics arent up to your standards, bla, bla, bla.

Nothing sounded like Rush in 75, there was nothing generic about them. I think Im going bald, Lakeside Park, beside being great songs find me thier "generic" predecessor or even another later generic sound alike.

"Rush didnt have bad albums", "Dream Theater had bad albums", "No - Rush did have bad albums", "Getty Lee wants to play disco", "Alex Lifeson wants to play Buddy Holly", "Neil Peart did a drum solo".... bla bla F'in bla

Spewing your expertise according to your personal taste, based on music in retrospect is where the snooze fest is.

Yawn... wake me up when you have a sound bite of your own masterpiece to impress me with

 

[Kenneth R.]

I actually really love Test For Echo, Vapor Trails, Presto. And the rest of them.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Presto is pretty good. Light, catchy Rush fare. Red Tide is my fav off that one.

 

[proulxski]

You are right Kenn, That cannot be said for DT. But I still find I&W more to my taste than anything rush has ever done. Though the entire Rush catologue is more enjoyable and consistent than Dream Theaters!

 

[razoredge]

and I would disagree, if anything I'd say DT's problem has been being to consistent and Rushs not being consistant. I almost have all of DTs material and find it more consistently enjoyable than Rush. But Im missing alot of Rush material. What I have I like just fine especially the old standbys but comparing negitively either way two bands that are in the same league is fucking hockey talk as far as Im concerned. Sad day the day music talk turned the mentality of arm chair jocks, must be human nature I suppose... beam me up Scotty

Anyhow I want to get a DVD of Rush in Rio ??? I saw something like this over the winter on some TV channel and it was awesome.

 

[proulxski]

Live long and prosper. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I enjoy both bands, I enjoy Dream Theater more so. However some of DT's wankery gets way out of hand. But its consistent wankery, you always know when its going to come in a song. Rush I do not enjoy nearly as much, but I find myself enjoying each and every album to some extent! (There are some DT albums I just can't really do!) But either or, its all relative to the listener. Both great bands!

 

[Liquid Tension]

The Rush in Rio DVD sounds surprisingly bad... I have the Exit Stage Left DVD and it has a great sound so go with that one...

 

[Kenneth R.]

Rio DVD bad?

Compared to what???

 

[razoredge]

The footage I saw seemed to be good quality and that sound was just coming out the TV speaker. It was late at night and I didnt start at the beginning and I believe I think I fell asleep before it was over too, but what I heard... as I recall, sounded great. I was also astounded by the size of the crowd and how they appeared to know every note and every word of every song. I had the horrid experience of seeing Rush twice in the mid/late 70's in the most acoustically unfit venue on the face of the earth and left with little more than ringing ears. Not unlike my Symphony X concert experience... where the hell are the good soundmen ? Find them, hire them and shoot the rest.

Proul - I love extended instrumentals and have for decades. One of my side nitches, fusion was all based on improv, so has been gobs of blues, hard rock and metal. The only thing wanky about the term wankery is the people that use it as a way to be demeaning to the greatest instrumentalists in thier fields. I find those that use the term to be unable to take musical adventures if all they can register out of it is people showing off, when I can totally trip out on the vib and transfers these musicians take me on. Theres always the pop stations for those of you that cant deal with massively intense musicians.........

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

There's a world of difference between sorcerous execution in a composition and multimetered wankery for the sake of multimetered wankery. Sadly, this latter category is where DT has belonged to for the last 10 years.
Sorry, but it's the truth.

 

[razoredge]

Like I said if you cant take the trip thats all you'll hear. Sad, but true.