FLY BY NIGHT

After Rush's debut album an extraordinary series of events took place. After working their tails off playing every high school, church basement and bar they can throughout Ontario, Canada, they finally released an album on their own label after getting rejected multiple times, they then secured a record deal based on the strength of sales from their debut and now had many gigs lined up. Now they were at odds with their drummer. John Rutsey was not on the same page musically and personality-wise as the others. Also he was diabetic and he also wasn't too keen on touring. Meanwhile an incredible drummer, who pretty much had given up on trying to "make it" after moving to England a couple of years prior, shows up and changes the band's (and his) fortunes forever. Fly By Night is Mr. Neil Peart's debut album for Rush. His influence is immediately heard on the very first track. It turns out Neil was the perfect man for the job. Not only could the band increase their musicianship but now they had a real lyricist and someone willing to commit full time. Fly By Night is that transition album from their hard rock beginnings to their more prog flavored albums that came after. In contrast to the debut album, Fly By Night is much sharper, the lyrics were much better for the most part and they now started to take a stab at a longer pieces. . The drums are FAR superior to John Rutsey. Neil had the power of a John Bonham with the finesse of a Michael Giles or a Carl Palmer. The songs vary quite a bit here, You have some hard rock (Anthem, Best I Can) Hard pop (Fly By Night) acoustic (Rivendell) and prog (By-Tor and the Snow Dog). The best way to describe this album would be that it's hard rock with prog musicianship but with a fiercer attack. Still the songwriting needs a bit more shaping up for Rush to enter prog territory but nonetheless is a seminal album for heavy prog.