TEST FOR ECHO

Well, finally I am going to review an album by my favorite band of all time. Why start with this one? I'm not sure; inspiration just struck as I was reading through the existing reviews, plus I'm getting tired of doling out 4 and 5-star reviews (I have only reviewed albums that are all-time favorites thus far).

Well, as music in general goes (and especially most 90's music), this is a decent album. By Rush standards, it is NOT! While the band stopped making every song a masterpiece around the time of Grace Under Pressure (IMO), there were always more great songs than stinkers on the subsequent albums. That equation is flipped upside down here; most is generic post-alternative quasi-prog. You may say, "Well, so was Counterparts", and you would be correct. However, the difference is that Counterparts has mostly good songs, and had a nice organic sound, unlike this over-produced, overly slick effort.

There are nice moments: the title track is pretty interesting, "Driven" is propulsive (naturally, with that title), "Half The World" is catchy, and "Totem" has some good moments. "Limbo" is excellent, as are all of Rush's instrumentals, though it isn't as expansive as, say, "La Villa Strangiato" or as aggressive as "YYZ". Resist is OK, but not nearly as good as the live acoustic version they did on the last couple of tours.

Now to the bad: just about everything else. My biggest complaint with this album are the lyrics (heresy!): some of them are plain banal and almost laughable. And to make it worse, some of the songs they reside in would be outstanding otherwise, especially "Dog Years". Man, when I first heard that one, I was in heaven at first with that aggressive, fast, almost punky guitar riff. Geddy started singing and I was thinking "Finally, Geddy is screaming in that high register again; sweet!!!" Then the chorus arrives and all good feelings are immediately killed by the awful lyrics. The same could be said for "Virtuality"; "Net boy, net girl..." What the...?!?!?! Neil, we all know you can do better, and did do better on Vapor Trails.

Definitely not the place to start for new and aspiring Rushophiles.