RUSH

Despite the fact that Rush is undoubtedly a massive name in the prog world, I personally find it hard to deny that they had a very rocky start with their first couple of albums, with their eponymous debut containing little of what people would associate with Rush. Before Neil Peart entered the scene on their second album, Fly By Night, there was very little prog to be found in the band, instead employing a more standard, classic rock sound taking heavy inspiration from Led Zeppelin. Personally, I'm not much of a fan of the majority of this album, as I do feel like it often does sound like a weaker version of the bands they are being influenced by, and it feels clear that while there was definitely work that went into the album, it often can feel ill conceived when listening to the weaker cuts on the album.

Finding My Way kicks off with a fun, fairly standard hard rock riff, with the other instruments backing it up nicely to make one of the songs here that sound a bit more like what Rush would come to sound like on their future albums. The big issue with the song is that it is littered with Geddy Lee screaming "Oh yeah", which doesn't come off as much beyond extremely cheesy to me, and it definitely dampens the song quality quite considerably, disrupting the flowand steady groove of the song considerably.Need Some Love is one of the weaker tracks on the album, doing very little which I find interesting, as it doesn't even function particularly well as a fun classic rock song, which I believe is at least somewhat to do with the fact that Geddy's vocals here are quite grating at multiple point, especially when trying to sing passionately or hit high notes. Take A Friend isn't anything particularly special, but it is a passable song all around, without anything particularly wrong with it outside of the lyrics being very cheesy, but it doesn't really do too much for me in either case, although it is a massive improvement from the previous two songs. Here Again is one of the 2 songs on the album that I can say I truly love, as it takes a more subtle, moody approach that still leaves room for a passionate performance, but one that doesn't go over the top like most of the other songs here do, and Geddy sounds great. The song ascends to another level once the vocals are belted out and the amazing guitar solo kicks in, which balances the two main aspects of soloing extremely well, being technically impressive enough while also containing great deals of emotion and melody, and ties the song together very well. Overall, this is likely m favourite song from Rush's first 3 albums and is definitely an underrated gem.

After that display of greatness, the album falls back to being strraighforward hard rock, with What You're Doing instigating a very similar response to what I felt from Take A Friend, being decent, but nothing particularly interesting to me. In The Mood sticks out to me even more than Need Some Love as the definite weak point on the album, with a chorus that simply does nothing outside of bore and frustrate me, all around being dull and repetitive with very little going for the song in general. Before and After is one of the better songs here, having an extended intro and really fun, groovy instrumentals, especially the wonderful bassline. It still suffers from fairly poor vocals, but even so, the song still ends up sounding pretty fun. Working Man is the obvious pick for another highlight on the album however, being acclaimed as Rush's first true classic song, which I can completely see why, as the song defiitely feels like the most fully realised on the album, having a strong, consistent groove maintaining the pace as Alex Lifeson unleashes awesome solos. The main verses are enjoyable all around as well, and definitely lend themselves to the song, despite the main attraction being that superb instrumental break in the middle of it.

Overall, while I personally don't enjoy a great deal of the songs here, the ones I do enjoy are enough to push this up to a 2 star rating, along with the fact that there is definitely potential within the album that was just not quite realised here. I'd definitely find this much more enjoyable with a few more songs of the quality of Working Man and Here again, but even moreso if the vocals were better, as they're definitely another ig reason why this album just doesn't hit the mark for me. While I do like Rush quite a bit, I still personally find there to be only a small amount of material to enjoy here, even though that material happens to be pretty excellent.

Best songs: Here Again, Working Man

Weakest songs: Need Some Love, In The Mood

Verdict: This mainly sounds like Rush emulating the sound of Led Zeppelin, often fairly poorly. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this album to anyone before a great deal of other Rush albums, although if you're an avid fan of straighforward hard rock, you may enjoy this one quite a bit, I just personally don't.