FLY BY NIGHT

As Neil Peart entered Rush, the band experimented a rebirth that would redefine its existence and its musical output. Regarding the music, with this album came the first demonstrations of the progressive direction the trio would achieve and perfect in future releases. Lyrically, as Peart began to take the helm, the songs started to abandon their naive, simplistic style featured in the debut. Themes of fantasy and adventure that appeared here first would prevail during the following years, although the shift would not be permanent.

The powerful opener, "Anthem" truly lives up to its name, and would become a staple in the band's live presentations. "By-Tor and the Snow Dog", the band's first epic and progressive track, showed what these three young men were capable of doing behind their respective roles and instruments. "Beneath, Between and Behind" is a short, quick burst of energy and speed, but full of great ideas. And the album's closer, aptly titled "In the End" , is also a highlight of the album, beginning with an acoustic sound that soon morphs into a heavier, electric sound that, while continuing the musical themes, riffs, and chords, keeps adding innovation to the track.

Unfortunately, only half of the tracks are of such fine quality. "Best I Can" conserves the style and lyrical laziness of the first album. No wonder why, since its lyrics were penned, not by Peart, but by Lee, who had taken care, to its detriment, or the lyrics in the debut. The title song, with lyrics by Peart, is credited to only Lee in the music, an unusual fact that would be corrected in the years to come. The Lee/Lifeson collaboration yielded way better results in the majority of instances. Same problem with "Rivendell", which I can assure without a shadow of doubt that is the worst song in Rush's entire existence. Not only because I dislike "The Lord of the Rings" (Hey! I'm a Guatemalan! You can't blame me for having first coming to know about LOTR when I was 20+ years old!), but the song is as boring and excessively long as Peter Jackson's trilogy. "Making Memories" is, ironically, quite a forgettable song, with nothing particularly wrong, but with nothing particularly good.

In short, "Fly By Night" is a good, but not essential album, with many hints of the greatness that Rush would achieve, but with evidence that they still had a lot to learn, and a lot of work to do to truly "find their way" .