POWER WINDOWS

Rush

Heavy Prog

3.57 | 1145 ratings

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SouthSideoftheSky
Special Collaborator
Symphonic Team

"Style without substance" and "run of the mill" are very fitting expressions featured among the lyrics of this album

I think it is more than fair to say that Rush were stuck in a rut in the mid 80's. With Signals, Rush tried something new, and even if the band's classic era ended with Moving Pictures - their last great album - Signals was still somewhat fresh and interesting to these ears. Even so, Signals was the start of a downward spiral for Rush that continued with Grace Under Pressure and culminated with Power Windows. If Grace Under Pressure was Signals part 2 then Power Windows is Grace Under Pressure part 2. It seems that they stopped developing at this point and instead were content with doing more of the same.

More of the same can sometimes be a good thing though if the template is strong enough and it is done with passion and energy. But it is here that Rush failed so terminally. The songwriting is really weak here and every single track sounds like a bleak and uninspired copy of some song from the two previous albums. Signals and Grace Under Pressure - even if they were no longer Prog Rock album - still featured some classic Rush tunes. Power Windows, on the other hand, does not feature a single song that can be said to belong to Rush's best, not even the best of 80's Rush. This is simply run of the mill or Rush by the numbers. It all sounds like something we have all heard before a million times and the result is one of Rush's most uninspired recordings ever. Even the cover art is awful!

Thankfully - as it was pretty much impossible to make a record worse than the present one - Rush would again start to improve with the next couple of albums. Power Windows was the first time they hit rock bottom.

SouthSideoftheSky | 1/5 | 2009-1-18

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