TEST FOR ECHO

I am a die-hard Rush fan, close to being an unconditional fan... where it not for two of their albums : Roll the Bones and this one, Test for Echo. Apart from Counterparts, the 90's have to be Rush's least interesting period, and this album is the least interesting from that period. Only 3 songs I enjoy on this one : Test For Echo, Driven, and Time and Motion. Resist is way better acoustic, as played on Rush in Rio. This is also the case for TfE and Driven : both are excellent live numbers, as heard on Different Stages. The rest of the album, well, falls flat. Rush sounded like a band that were on automatic pilot with this album, slowly but surely drifting towards the end of their career (and God knows it came close, knowing the events in Neil's life). Even lyrically, the ever-smart and witty Neil Peart wrote righteous and cheesy stuff here (Virtuality and The Color of Right, and the awful Totem).

Fans will sure want to complete their collection buying this album, and others should stick with the live versions of the songs I mentionned earlier, as I think the rest of the album is far from necessary in anyone's collection.