ROLL THE BONES

Rush is one of not many bands who has the ability to blend attractive, accessible and a bit complex arrangements with excellent lyrics, written by Neil Peart who is also playing the drums. The band has traditionally had a chunky, heavy rhythms and screaming vocals delivered by vocalist/bassist Geddy Lee. But since "Signals" and "Grace Under Pressure" he calmed down his voice so that it sounds softer than early albums. On top of music, what I like about Rush is that their passion to keep ahead with their music direction despite significant demand from its fans base to say course with what they did in the past with masterpiece like "2112", "Moving Pictures" "A Farewell to Kings" etc.

"Roll The Bones" is an interesting album where - I just realized really - that Rupert Hine produced the album altogether with Rush. No wonder, the music of this album has strong influence from Rupert Hine even though the band still maintains its standing as heavier side of prog music. I knew Rupert Hine sometime in early 80s where he released his dolo album and his music blended the new wave style as well as Peter Gabriel's music. It was an interesting album and later in the 90s I also bought his album and he still delivered good music. In this album he also plays some keyboards as well as backing style. His influence can directly be seen from each track in this album. "Dreamline" combines the dynamic bass lines and dazzling drum work with softer riffs and solo of Alex Lifeson's guitar. The same style is maintained through the next track "Bravado" whereby the music has strong elements of keyboards. The title track "Roll The Bones" has more variations as compared to the preceding two tracks. In this track the band tries to explore another style which seems like a hip-hop in their style and it flows naturally throughout the track.

My best favorite track out of this album is an instrumental piece "Where's My Thing"? It's an excellent composition showing tight bass lines which fill the music dynamically in between drums, keyboards and occasional keyboard punches. What I like about this track is that the band seems to bury down their pass success through amazing instrumental like "Yyz" or "La Villa Strangiato" into modern sound with tight composition.

Through this album Rush intends to convey a message to its fans base their music has evolved into modern sound using keyboards to enrich the textures and softer vocal. Gone are the days when Geddy sung high register notes . Even though this is not best album from the band, but it's a very good one to have. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW