Rush

Top 5 Rush Albums/Next Band

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    87
Caress of Steel (1975)
Bastille Day - 8/10
I Think I’m Going Bald - 1/10
Lakeside Park - 6/10
The Necromancer - 4/10
The Fountain of Lamneth - 5/10

Album rating - 4.8/10

Easily Rush's weakest album, and even the band thinks so. There is simply no cohesion to the album at all (sometimes even within the songs themselves) and it just feels like a giant drug trip.
  • Bastille Day is the only worthwhile song here. All around a solid tune.
  • I Think I'm Going Bald is the dumbest song in their catalog. Yes, it's worse than Dog Years. Yes, it's worse than Tai Shan. The lyrics are atrocious and the music is incredibly pedestrian.
  • Lakeside Park is fine, but it mostly just drifts on by. It is pleasant enough, I suppose.
  • The Necromancer has a very cool middle section full of heavy, proto-prog metal riffing and jamming, but the song itself is a disjointed, lame mess. The spoken word bits are absurd, the story is not a story (for some reason By-Tor is back and he's a good guy now?), and the musical sections just don't really gel together.
  • Lamneth gets points solely for allowing the band future confidence. As a song, it's not good. The parts fade in and out of each other with poor transitions, it's way, way too long and verbose for a story that boils down to "you're born, you live, you die", and there's just way too much of the samey acoustic sections throughout. It allowed the band to write much, much better epics going forward, though, and for that we are thankful.
  • Really, really bad album.
 
MrK said:
Caress of Steel (1975)
Bastille Day - 8/10
I Think I’m Going Bald - 1/10
Lakeside Park - 6/10
The Necromancer - 4/10
The Fountain of Lamneth - 5/10

Album rating - 4.8/10

Easily Rush's weakest album, and even the band thinks so. There is simply no cohesion to the album at all (sometimes even within the songs themselves) and it just feels like a giant drug trip.
  • Bastille Day is the only worthwhile song here. All around a solid tune.
  • I Think I'm Going Bald is the dumbest song in their catalog. Yes, it's worse than Dog Years. Yes, it's worse than Tai Shan. The lyrics are atrocious and the music is incredibly pedestrian.
  • Lakeside Park is fine, but it mostly just drifts on by. It is pleasant enough, I suppose.
  • The Necromancer has a very cool middle section full of heavy, proto-prog metal riffing and jamming, but the song itself is a disjointed, lame mess. The spoken word bits are absurd, the story is not a story (for some reason By-Tor is back and he's a good guy now?), and the musical sections just don't really gel together.
  • Lamneth gets points solely for allowing the band future confidence. As a song, it's not good. The parts fade in and out of each other with poor transitions, it's way, way too long and verbose for a story that boils down to "you're born, you live, you die", and there's just way too much of the samey acoustic sections throughout. It allowed the band to write much, much better epics going forward, though, and for that we are thankful.
  • Really, really bad album.
Click to expand...
I'd give Necromancer a higher score here, especially for the latter portion of the song. I do love the proto-prog metal riffing (I like your description here), then after a short bit of inane spoken word blather it launches into a heavy, blues-drenched solo that continues through the song's fade out. I love it when that final solo gets stuck in my head for a while.

But yes overall they needed to put the bong down for a bit longer when they were putting this album together.
 
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mtmccox said:
I was only reading your reviews for days and days and so, but today I was raised from my chair. Only 4 to Superconductor?! How very dare you.
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It’s got some get-up-and-go but it’s incredibly lame, especially those chorus backing vocals.

Permanent Waves (1980)
The Spirit of Radio - 10/10
Freewill - 10/10
Jacob’s Ladder - 9/10
Entre Nous - 8/10
Different Strings - 7/10
Natural Science - 10/10

Album rating - 9/10

Rush begins their peak era with an absolute banger!
  • The Spirit of Radio and Freewill is maybe the single best 1-2 punch in the discography. Two absolutely perfect songs launching us into Rush’s two best albums. There is not a moment wasted or faltered on either track. Absolutely peak Rush at their most creative and joyous.
  • Jacob’s Ladder is a beautiful tone poem set to music. This one has grown on me immensely over the years. I can literally see them playing this song on the R40 tour in my minds eye and that performance significantly raised the bar. It could stand to lose 30-60 seconds, but still a beautiful work of art.
  • Entre Nous is fun and well-written, but definitely can’t measure up to the other greatness on the album. Still a great song!
  • Different Strings is easily the best Geddy lyric in the discography. It’s a very nice piece. Honestly, I’d rate it the same as Entre Nous if it weren’t for that terrible fade out.
  • Natural Science might be the heaviest and proggiest thing they ever did. Obviously the production can’t live up to the more modern records, but this song is just so damn powerful. A masterpiece.
  • Fucking kudos, boys.
 
Snakes and Arrows (2007)
Far Cry - 10/10
Armor and Sword - 8/10
Workin’ Them Angels - 8/10
The Larger Bowl - 7/10
Spindrift - 4/10
The Main Monkey Business - 9/10
The Way the Wind Blows - 8/10
Hope - 5/10
Faithless - 3/10
Bravest Face - 8/10
Good News First - 2/10
Malignant Narcissism - 8/10
We Hold On - 9/10

Album rating - 6.8/10

A bloated late stage album that has some true gems and some true misses.
  • The band was definitely in a much better place and hired a much better producer here: the album sounds great! Instrumentally, the guys seem to be playing with a ton of exuberance, while lyrically, Neil was in his peak "old atheist yelling at clouds" phase.
  • Far Cry is easily the best song the band released since Counterparts and also better than a lot of what came before! It's just such an incredibly energetic and ballsy tune. Apparently it was one of those lightning in a bottle songs that just came out of them during a jam - these compositions are almost always a gift (not from God, definitely not from God, don't you believe in science, you fools?!).
  • We Hold On is a lovely capstone to the record. A ton of energy after the bloat of the album. I love the experimental sounds and tones Alex is working with here (and on other parts of the album).
  • Armor and Sword has an amazing chorus and pre-chorus (though really tuneless verse vocals), Workin' Them Angels is another late-stage catchy tune, and Neil's great lyrics push The Way The Wind Blows and Bravest Face a point or two higher. I really enjoy all these songs. The Larger Bowl is also pleasant.
  • Having 3 instrumentals certainly feels like padding, even if The Main Monkey Business is phenomenal (and recorded live!). Home is beautiful, but throwaway, Malignant Narcissism is incredibly funky and fun, but way too short. I wish both had been expanded into full songs as they have more life than some of the actual tracks with lyrics.
  • The remaining tracks are straight up bad for one reason or another: Spindrift has the heaviest moments on the album but shoves a completely bland song in between those moments, Faithless has a great message but lyrics that lack nuance or catchiness and a nonexistent melody, and Good News First just really sucks.
  • All in all: a massive upgrade from Vapor Trails but falls victim to the "aging band doesn't know how to edit themselves" trap.
 
Counterparts (1993)
Animate - 10/10
Stick it Out - 8/10
Cut to the Chase - 8/10
Nobody’s Hero - 10/10
Between Sun & Moon - 7/10
Alien Shore - 7/10
The Speed of Love - 3/10
Double Agent - 7/10
Leave That Thing Alone - 10/10
Cold Fire - 10/10
Everyday Glory - 8/10

Album rating - 8.0/10

A rare bright (and heavy) spot in the 90s era of Rush!
  • First and foremost: I don't think Alex Lifeson has ever had more consistently great and weighty guitar tones! Whatever Kevin Shirley did while recording and however this was mixed and mastered, he sounds absolutely massive. I love how prominent the guitar is throughout the album and yet it never drowns anything out. This may be my favorite overall production on any single Rush album.
  • Animate is a stone cold classic, a driving tour de force of a song. Nobody's Hero is a beautiful power ballad that somehow works despite the thick, immense layers of cheese. Cold Fire is another masterpiece of their songwriting. So catchy and powerful.
  • Leave That Thing Alone has, IMO, the single best moment of guitar and bass interplay in their history and probably my favorite Geddy bassline. What an absolute beast of a riff and melody!
  • Some other tracks get up there with some great musicality (they were really on fire throughout this album) and mostly good lyrics, such as Stick It Out, Cut to The Chase and Everyday Glory.
  • For some reason the bizarre experiments this time around don't bug me in the overall sense, but they do lower the scores of some songs (here's looking at you weirdo post-modern chorus of Between Sun & Moon or awkward Geddy poetry in Double Agent).
  • The Speed of Love really tanks the album score, though, as it is just woefully lame. The only thing that saves it is Geddy's cheeky porno bass in the bridge.
 
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