GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

This album definetly has all those Rush hallmarks: Brilliant drumming, great lyrics, catchy tunes and THAT voice. However, where this album fails for me is Alex Lifeson almost being pushed aside in favour of synths. Alex's playing has always been a core part for Rush, and on the previous album 'Signals' Rush managed to produce a fine balance between synths and guitars, but this album they lean to much towards the synth. Another failing for this album is that the synth work, while good, ends up being much too samey in the end. Rush managed to achieve a fine balance between synth and guitar again with Power Windows, one of their best albums in my opinion, but in this album their experimentalism went slightly awry. Don't get me wrong though, this album still has brilliant tracks such as 'Distant Early Warning', 'Red Sector 'A'' and 'Between The Wheels', but I can't help but feel they could have done better. Still, the price of admission is worth it just for those three tracks. The others, while not brilliant, are still worth listening to, especially 'Afterimage'. If you are into earlier Rush, I'd give this a miss, but if you're more a fan of synth-rock, I'd give it a spin. Myself, I'd give it four stars, but only just.