FLY BY NIGHT

Rush

Heavy Prog

3.38 | 1413 ratings

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Time Signature

Essential but not excellent.

'Fly by Night' is an essential album seen in the perspective of the history of progressive rock and in the perspective of hte individual band history of Rush. It is probably best characterized as a transition between more traditional blues-oriented hard rock and the coming progressive hard rock that is found on albums like '2112' and 'Permanent Waves' later in the band's history.

'Fly by Night' contains mainly straightforward rock songs, some of which are more interesting than others. Noteworthy are the title track 'Fly by Night' and 'Anthem', which are both wonderfully cathcy, each in its own way.

The outstanding track is 'By-Tor and the Snowdog', which I think is one of the great masterpieces in the history of rock 'n' roll. It starts out in an "in medias res" res explosion and offers nine minutes of empowering hard rock energy spiced with musical humor and with lyrics that effectively generate vivid imagery.

'Fly by Night' is not a masterpiece, and it is perhaps even not a great album, but it is essential nonetheless (hence four stars instead or three), and 'By-Tor and the Snowdog' is certainly worth buying the entire album for.

Time Signature | 4/5 | 2007-8-13

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