The highest compliment you can give Rush’s 1987 release Hold Your Fire is that, despite the further descent into/evolution towards 80s proggy-synth pop, the music still sounds quintessentially Lee/Lifeson/Peart. While the tableau onto which the band expressed their creative talents is a radical shift from the hard-hitting rock of the mid 70s, the epic discovery…
Much has been said, written, blogged, pontificated, praised, vilified, ignored, and cherished about Rush’s so-called “80’s period” or “keyboard era” or whatever you want to call their post-Moving Pictures, pre-Counterpoints releases. No matter how you view that period of the band’s career, most point to Rush’s 1982 album Signals as the line of demarcation between classic/hard/prog…
Producer Nick Raskulinecz lobbied hard to work with Rush on their 2007 album Snakes & Arrows, and the result is probably one of the strongest (if not THE strongest) album of the band’s later period. Ostensibly he was working to return Rush to their experimental heyday of the 2112 through Hemispheres era, although I don’t think…
Fly By Night, the first of two 1975 releases from Rush, is the band’s second album but is the first to feature drummer and primary lyricist Neil Peart, which in many ways makes it the band’s first “real” album. Peart brought so much to the table — more literary allusions, deeply personal and philosophical lyricism,…
After the somewhat chaotic production of 1984’s Grace Under Pressure (which I suspect worked in the album’s favor, but that’s neither here nor there), Rush returned to the studio in 1985 for their followup Power Windows, a more confident-sounding and cohesive album than its predecessor (but not quite as good). Themes of power, its utilization,…
Rush’s 20th studio album (and as of this writing, their latest release) Clockwork Angels was an ambitious project in many ways. It was the band’s first studio record since 2007’s Snakes & Arrows, during which time they had seen a huge uptick in pop culture awareness and mainstream acceptance, bolstered by appearances in the 2009…
Rush’s self titled debut album could possibly be the least essential LP in the band’s catalog… or perhaps, one of the most important? Both, maybe? Neither? OK… let’s quantify Rush somehow by taking an honest look at its very existence. We might as well get the 800-lb. emu out of the way now; stalwart drummer…
Rush’s tenth album Grace Under Pressure displayed a further evolution of the band’s sound, eschewing traditional “hard rock” trappings of their earlier records in favor of a more diverse, contemporary, synth/keyboard-driven soundstage. Albums like 1980’s Permanent Waves and 1981’s Moving Pictures displayed a penchant towards shorter, more accessible and (dare I say) radio-friendly songs, whereas…
In order to shake off the stench of commercial disappointment that accompanied their three previous albums (Unmasked, Music From “The Elder”, Creatures of the Night), Kiss was now at the biggest crossroads of their career. After being increasingly viewed as a dated relic of the 1970s, their album sales continued to suffer. One more flop…
Destroyer was Kiss’s larger-than-life effort to keep momentum rolling after the multi-platinum success of their landmark 1975 live album Alive!. After releasing three studio albums to middling results, the band bet the farm on an album that endeavored to replicate their “live concert” experience, and successfully at that, even if the amount of actual “live…