Metal Reviews

Emperor's mix of technicality and symphonic elements, Ihsahn's influence from the Baroque era Counterpoints to the program music from the Romantic period and how it was employed to BM is very admirable and one-of-a-kind. Trym fantastic style of drumming, and Samoth's contribution to all of this was without a doubt a very unique combination to the BM period. Give me an example of any other BM band that has combined such diverse genres of music to employ to extreme music. Emperor's whole discography is a prime example of progression in a band. One can criticize Ihsahn's ego, criticize some of Emperor's albums but I personally think they were all brilliant albums, nonetheless. A very diverse and unique band. Ihsahn's first solo album was absolutely great. He's second not so much but I haven't given it enough listens so I can't judge just yet. And his third was something very different and worked out very well indeed.

What missteps are there in Rush's discography?

I'm just saying Rush were not exactly immune to the mainstream rock market's influence at the time, like they were before. They usually did the exact opposite of what a band in their demographic would get away with if a label had the right of refusal, but I just wouldn't expect Rush to do what everyone else did, you know?

Synthesizer's gone too far? You've never heard "Everyday Glory" from CPs? They clearly were still being used as much as ever. I don't know why they decided to get rid of a lot of them when they mixed the album. I think in my mind they made a different sounding album and at the last minute they decided to make it more grunge sounding. The sound of the album reeks of a lot of EQ and mid/bass enhancement like it wasn't recorded with the intention of being mixed that way.

It's called a discography, not a discovery man.

Right I don't know how to thank you!

Discoverography!

It would have been cool if The Postman Syndrome had kept releasing music on a regular basis instead of changing their name a bunch and having a five year gap between albums. Also if Matt Lupo still sang for them lots.

And Reverend Bizarre shoulda stayed together to make the five albums they originally planned instead of three.

No, I didn't like his first solo album. I have no idea why you would think Prometheus part II would be like IX Equilibrium either. I won't bother looking up past comments from some of you, anyhow, this 'renouncing later Emperor' thing is highly amusing.

At least Karmo will always have the sheer unalloyed genius of late Anathema to fall back on

Test for Echo, not a bad album but disappointing in Rush standards nonetheless. But the worst is Vapor Trails which not only suffers from its "too loud to be good" production/mastering but also has the fewer inspired songs of any Rush album.

I gotta agree with you there on all points. For me T4E was the worst Rush album other than the debut and VT, which is the worst. I'd still score T4E an 85 and VT an 80 though. The VT producton... you get used to it. I really don't hear the clipping anywhere near as prominently as I used to. That album was real earsore when I first got it.

I like the songs they never played live from T4E myself. I really love Totem and Carve Away The Stone. Those are prime Rush cuts. Same thing with CP. I love Double Agent, Cold Fire, and Everyday Glory. I think they really got in a rut trying to write riff rock and it was just uninspired since it had been a long time since they had done that at the time. Between Sun & Moon, Cut To The Chase, T4E, Time and Motion, ect. Those sort of later Rush songs just did not suite the band well IMO. Considering how amazing the more textural and looser songs are, It leaves me wondering if those albums could have been masterpieces.

Don't get me wrong, a bad album by Rush is a great album for most bands. Still those two are the less "into it" they've ever seemed to be. I know Peart had many personal problems and I think it shows.
I disagree about their debut album, it's a good album of a band that has yet to find his true self but shows a lot of promises and already can write good songs. Sure, Peart's missing but Rutsey's not bad in a more conventional 70s rock style and fits the bill perfectly.
As for the synth-era I earlier dissed, I got to confess Power Windows and Hold Your Fire are among my fav' in the band's discography.

The only Rush-album I just can't seem to enjoy is Presto for some reason. Everything else ranges from above average to masterful.

Caress Of Steel is the one that never really worked for me. VT and TFE have some great songs.

I don't really get why you've been making this into an infrequent running gag of sorts. What does Anathema have to do with any of this? Am I to consider Anathema a guilty pleasure of sorts according to you, and if so, why? We generally have similar tastes, you and I, so why are you judging me on account of one minute part of my musical spectrum?

Edit: Avoid the remaster, it was botched. All the highs were flattened out for some reason. If you compress the remaster with MP3, all the highs gets wiped out because they were quieted down so much.

Give it some time. Believe me, I was absolutely pissed off at that album the first few times because I thought Rush had phoned it in and released a mediocre piece of shit. I just had to put on the headphones and force myself to listen to it. I consider it one of their best now. It's a difficult album because there are a lot of strange keys and key/tempo shifts that you don't really notice are changing the entire feel of the song. Available Light is like that, the chorus makes no sense musically until you notice the tonality is far different and just go with it. In other words, you kind of have to forget how the different sections of the song are supposed to fit together until you start hearing the notes correctly, then those changing keys will have such a dramatic impact, it's unbelievable.

No, we are in complete agreement. I consider the debut a great album too. Better than anything Zeppelin or Deep Purple ever released. The only thing I don't like about it is Here Again. It's a slow Rush song, it's boring and it takes forever to end. I'm glad they never did anything like that again.

Power Windows is my favorite album by anyone. Every track is perfect, I have yet to hear another album that shares that distinction. Other albums have come very close, but there always seems to be one track on a (near) "perfect" album that is not quite as potent as the rest.

If Hold Your Fire had been 8 tracks (it was "expanded" because of CD's) it would have been perfect as well. t would have cut Tai Shan
and Turn The Page, even thought the latter is a great song, but not perfect.

I think that anyone who tells you they love Caress of Steel is lying or joking ..

I love it. It was the first Rush album I bought when all I had were the two retrospective discs. I bought that one first because I knew if I liked it, then I should get the rest. I avoided being disappointed by Rush albums by buying the albums in the reverse order of how well they were received. I bought COS first and Power Windows and Permanent Waves last. My plan worked pretty damn well I should say.

That's the one song keeping the album from perfection.

The band thinks it is as stupid as we do now.

Other stuff Rush hates from Rush:

Neil thinks everything before Permanent Waves should go out of print. He called those albums something to the effect of "doodles your parents put on the fridge." He especially hates the lyrics to The Trees.

The song Face Up. They admitted they were lazy in creating it by not developing it enough.

Alex has not a happy camper in the 80's, quitting on a weekly basis and believing that being a guitarist would sooner or later become antiquated.

Geddy Lee was going through a tough time with his family and does not like to revisit the P/G period at all.

Rush dislikes their early attempts at songwriting so much that they won't admit they actually had material before they released their single "Not Fade Away/You Can't Fight It", which itself will never see the light of day commercially. There are reportedly over a dozen songs they did as a bar band because some people remember the names of the songs. The first mini tour with Neil featured three songs that they dropped immediately when they got in the studio and decided to try their hand at prog rock instead. They were "Fancy Dancer" "Garden Road" and "Bad Boy."

I know all this and, imho, it's a good thing for a band to doubt themselves, hate some things they did, etc. I think it helped Rush evolve and change throughout the years. Few bands did it with such gusto and integrity.
As you said earlier, it wasn't the easy path for the band to go "all synth" in the 80s while their fanbase was only wanting more Tom Sawyer, 2112 or La Villa Strangiato typed-songs. Geddy, Alex and Neil always did what they wanted to do and, for the most part, did it better than any other band.
Yes, I'm a fan too...