PRESTO

This is really a 3.5 score, cuz I consider this one of the better collection of post-80's songs Rush has compiled. By this point the band had devolved into an 80's synth band and abandoned any of the complexity and daring that marked their best efforts. Still, many of the songs here work very well, making this one of the better of the post-80's albums.

Highlights include Red Tide (with a terrific, urgent keyboard melody), Show Don't Tell (pretty much a standard Rush single at this point but good nonetheless), Chain Lightning (with a cool bopping guitar bit). The band had also learned the art of the slow rock single in such songs as The Pass and Hand Over Fist. Scars represents worldview song now present on every Rush release, but has nice drum rhythms.

All in all a solid effort but clearly not the band's best. From here forward, though, things did not get better.