Rush

Top 5 Rush Albums/Next Band

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Fu Manchu with Lifeson!
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Rush weren't the first band to fill an entire album side with a single epic track, but grand, suite-like works such as 1976's "2112" and 1978's "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres" helped make them legends of long-form prog. So it makes sense that after retro-minded SoCal hard rockers Fu Manchu recorded "Il Mostro Atomico" – an 18-minute song set for their new LP, Clone of the Universe – they invited Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson to appear on the track. The full song premieres here in advance of the album's Friday release.

According to a Revolver interview with Fu Manchu guitarist/vocalist Scott Hill, the band's manager was the one who brokered the collaboration. Rather than simply playing a guest solo, Lifeson recorded a wealth of material for the band to pick and choose from. "He sent us back a bunch of stuff and it all sounded insane," Hill said.

Lifeson's contributions can be heard in the first half of "Il Mostro Atomico." The song (whose Italian title translates to "The Atomic Monster") starts out with one of the band's signature bottom-heavy, fuzzed-out grooves. At the 3:58 mark, Lifeson plays a loose, bluesy riff over a hypnotic pattern from Fu Manchu bassist Brad Davis and drummer Scott Reeder. Around 4:15, the Rush guitarist adds adds some tasteful effects, giving his part a spacey, echo-y sound. As the rhythm section drops out, the riff continues to mutate, leading into a trippy ambient swell around 5:10. The full band kicks in around 5:53, and Fu Manchu's lead guitarist, Bob Balch, takes over with a fluid psychedelic solo. From there, the mostly instrumental song moves on through various sections, touching on boogie-friendly psych (listen for a Lifeson pick scrape at 7:04; a couple minutes later, Hill enters on vocals, howling "Light the throttle"); space rock bathed in synth-like guitars; and a dubby, percussion-accented breakdown.

"'Il Mostro Atomico' came out of many riffs that we were bringing to practice after we had 14 songs already written for our new record Clone of the Universe," Hill tells Rolling Stone. "We usually like to have 10 songs for a full record. Instead of writing complete songs for all the newer riffs, we had we decided to keep the best riffs and put them together for one big song. I thought it would be cool to do one long song and have it be the entire Side 2 of our record. ... We recorded the full song in one take.

"Then we got word that Alex Lifeson agreed to play some guitar on the song: holy shit," he continues. "We sent him the song and said to play whatever/wherever he wanted to. He sent back the song with awesome riffs, sci-fi effects and even some pick slides. He made the song 10,000,000 times cooler."

"In the summer of 2017, I was approached by the band to add some guitar to the tracks they'd already recorded for 'Il Mostro,'" Lifeson tells RS. "I'd known of Fu Manchu for many years and thought that it would be a fun project to work on, as I typically come from another guitar direction and welcomed the challenge to do something a little different. The track was already quite dense with a riffy guitar presence and it forced me to think in terms of rhythm, ambience and edge. I really had a lot of fun and my only regret is I had a few other conflicting projects that didn't allow me the time to spend on filling in more space."

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...on-guest-on-fu-manchus-18-minute-epic-w516390
 
On the Presto tour, i saw Mr Big open for Rush. Billy Sheehan is the amazing bass player for Mr Big (I later saw him twice with the Winery Dogs and will see him with Sons of Apollo tomorrow!)

1 day Geddy was running late for soundcheck so Billy filled in! Here is the audio of some of the extended jam:

 
Awesome stuff. Two major observations I had:

1: Even on stage, Neil’s drums sounded very tinny and thin at the time. Was he tuning them higher?

2: Alex’s playing is really good, better than pretty much anything heard on a Rush album since the 70s. His lines are much smoother and there’s a bit more technical ability present than what was captured on the albums. I even hear shades of Alan Holdsworth.
It’s too bad he never did much outside of Rush to really show off his playing. Even when they got back to a more guitar driven rock sound their playing remained restrained. That’s not a bad thing of course, but it would’ve been cool to hear Alex on a G3 tour or something.
 
Mosh said:
Awesome stuff. Two major observations I had:

1: Even on stage, Neil’s drums sounded very tinny and thin at the time. Was he tuning them higher?

2: Alex’s playing is really good, better than pretty much anything heard on a Rush album since the 70s. His lines are much smoother and there’s a bit more technical ability present than what was captured on the albums. I even hear shades of Alan Holdsworth.
It’s too bad he never did much outside of Rush to really show off his playing. Even when they got back to a more guitar driven rock sound their playing remained restrained. That’s not a bad thing of course, but it would’ve been cool to hear Alex on a G3 tour or something.
Click to expand...

I think the Victor album is pretty underrated
(as is "My Favourite Headache" by Geddy)
 
Only mildly related to Rush .... but God is this funny!
(even if a little too close to home to the rest of us unsigned musicians!)

 
My favourite Rush album is Power Windows but it can change daily.

Wish the boys would come back. Geddy & Alex should just form another band if Neil won’t change his mind. They must be so bored.

Maybe Geddy should join Slayer once Tom hangs it up?
 
I was pretty excited for this but the tracklist has me underwhelmed once again. It’s not the band’s fault that there isn’t really much in the vault, but this seems even more bare than the last two 40th anniversary releases. Maybe they could include a documentary interview about the album or something.

I’ll probably check it out anyway. I wasn’t too excited for the AFTK set either but ended up being pretty happy with it. I’m glad they’ve at least skipped the covers this time around.
 
Looking forward to 2022 40th anniversary of Signals. Was my 1st new Rush lp. Friend of mine saw the tour and said they played 7 of the 8 songs plus The Camera Eye. Hoping for a live 2nd disc! Be nice to hear TCE back when Geddy's voice was still strong
 
I’m looking forward to all of them, assuming there will be one for every album up until Grace Under Pressure. It’s possible the 80s are more plentiful.
 
I like their 70s albums, but not enough to splash out on deluxe editions. I am waiting for them to hit the 80s and Grace Under Pressure & Power Windows, those are the ones I want expanded versions of.
 
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