TEST FOR ECHO

Rush would wait until 1996 to put out their next album, Test for Echo. The title track opens the album, and it's not very good. I give Lifeson credit for trying something a little different in his playing style. He utilized harmonics and some ugly, metallic chords, but he couldn't quite pull it off. The production isn't too great, either. It sounds far too airy and thin during the clean sections.

"Driven" is the best song on the album by a wide margin. The chorus melody is strong, even if the lyrics aren't, and Lee's bass playing is especially on-point. "Resist" is unremarkable in the incarnation heard on the album, but it would later be reworked as a much stronger acoustic piece for live performances.

Most of Test for Echo sounds almost like an updated Presto. Rush draws a lot from the more boring tropes of mid-'90s alt rock, and the production is inconsistent. Clean parts are light and echoey, and distorted parts are muddy and unclear. Many of the songs feel disjointed, as if they were just slapped together from loose parts.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2020/04/27/deep-dive-rush/