VAPOR TRAILS

Ok...forget the synths. Forget the leads. Forget a glossy production. Forget a crisp, clear, clean mix. Forget, for that matter, everything (EVERYTHING) you ever (thought you) knew about Rush. This is Rush bigger, rawer, nastier and gritter, stripped down and wicked for a new era.

I, for one, loathed it upon first hearing it. I wondered why everything was so damn muddy. The drum- and vocal-dominated mix makes it really difficult to listen to at times, I'll agree. But one must ALSO understand that they as a band (and Neil in particular) were going through some rough (understatement, I know) times, to say the very least. Then I read Neil's book Ghost Rider and it slowly fell in place. But it makes sense that the same air of desperation that permeates the book would also be here on CD. Neil's angry, upset, confused at the state of the world and of his own affairs. Naturally, that's gonna lead to something not so easy to listen to. It's not going to be clean, polished, neat, with everything in its place. No. No. No. A thousand times...no. It's gonna be ragged, raw, tinny, dirty, and everything else you can think of that has something to do with being unclean and uncertain.

Bottom line: It's NOT an easy listen. It's not supposed to be. Like the layers of an onion (which, similarly, makes me cry), you have to peel back the harsh layers of the disc to get to the root, the meat, which is the important part. Believe me, it's not easy. Like I said, it ain't supposed to be. Give it a chance and don't discard it out of hand. You'll come through, 69 minutes later, more knowledgeable about them, and, quite possibly, yourself.