Review:

on 2012-01-02 CharlesMartel Said:

Without doubt this album represents the height of Rush's output in terms of technical ability. This album is musically flawless. It is complex both in terms of its musicality and its composition. This album demonstrates beyond any doubt that these three musicians were capable of the most astonishing works of musical genius. With this album they definitely reached that level. The problem was, where were they going to go after here?

And therein lies this album's essential flaw. The main problem I have always had with prog rock is that, when taken to the ultimate extreme it becomes nothing more than a vehicle for individuals to display their ample virtuosity. The very worst example of this is Yes's "Tales From Topographic Oceans". Rush have made the same mistake with this album, though obviously not to the same degree. There is enough rock left in it to carry it through, but it is by far their most pretentious album. It signalled the end of the love affair with the music of Rush I had begun with the release of their first album.

Having finished the previous album with an eponymous spaceship entering a black hole and those ominous words "...to be continued", the album was anticipated as being the conclusion of that track, "Cygnus X-1". The whole of the first side is devoted to the outcome, an outcome that no one could have predicted. Instead of finishing off the sci-fi theme, Rush preferred instead to meld table-top philosophy with Greek mythology in a tale of how the warring factions of Apollo and Dionysius (reason and pleasure) were brought together by the space and time traveller, Cygnus X-1s appearance. "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" this ain't. Musically, it is excellent, but as a concept it is awful. And I maintain to this day that, as Rush closed the book on "A Farewell to Kings" they, or more particularly, Neal Peart, had no idea how the story of Cygnus was going to end. Was it any coincidence that the spaceship in which our heroes blasted off at the end of "A Farewell to Kings" was called the Rocinante (which for those of you who don't know was the name of Don Quixote's old nag). The problem is that there is no storyline. It is a morality tale and nothing else. And when you stretch that out over one whole side of an album you are going to have problems.

But there are other tracks on the album lest we forget. And Rush often hid their better tracks off the main focus, so to speak. Not so here. "La Villa Strangiato" is aptly subtitled an exercise in self-indulgence and is supposedly based on a dream Alex Lifeson had. Oh, reeeeallllly??? Look, Paganini might have gone to sleep in a drunken stupour, dreamt the Devil was sitting at the end of his bed playing the violin. Paganini, upon waking, wrote down the tune and named it after him. But Lifeson isn't Paganini and "La Villa Strangiato" is an exercise too far in pretentious over-the-top prog rock. "Trees" is the pick of the bunch, a morality tale about looking after nature. As for "Circumstances", well it is alright, but it really is nothing more than that.

Not surprisingly, Rush departed from this sort of work afterwards. And for the better too. However, it was probably too late for the band in terms of my association with them. The march of punk rock had shaken up the music industry and Rush were seen by many, myself included, as being somewhat out of date. I turned my tastes to other directions and it was not until nearly thirty years later than I bought another Rush album.
Rating: 6/10

on 2011-08-16 Unlikely_Heroes Said:

The last great album by Rush. After this they went for AM radio play. Geddy Lee dropped his bass for the keyboard and the music was never the same. Neil probably one of the most talented lyricists.
Not Rated