POWER WINDOWS

Being relatively a newcomer to Rush, meaning that yours truly wasn't around during the '70s and '80s, I began exploring their material by going through the discography one album at a time starting with their '70s albums. After exploring all of their albums up to Moving Pictures and hearing a few samples from their later albums I hesitated making any more purchases. This fact made a few of my friends a bit unhappy and after having a long discussion about it I was lent a copy of Power Windows which was suppose to represent everything that was so great about the band's '80s output.

After listening through this album on a few occasions my opinion on the matter remains the same as it was before. I'm simply not convinced by the music offered here. Let me be clear on one thing though, there is nothing particularly wrong with these compositions from a general point of view and all of my objections are only based on difference of personal taste that restrains me from seeing Power Windows as anything more than a fans only release.

This album is literally drained in layers upon layers of generic synthesizer sound which I found charming when it was used sparsely on the early '80s albums. For me, the essence of Rush lies in their ability to perform highly technical rock music where each member is exceptionally great at their particularly instrument. Unfortunately the emphasis has now been shifted by placing the skill in the background while basic keyboard patterns occupy the foreground. There are a few good songs that still manage to get past these limitations but overall my objection stands for most of this album. Just listen to the intro of The Big Money where Neil Peart begins the album with a magnificent drumbeat which then becomes completely overshadowed by the simplistic keyboard sounds.

The direction that Rush was heading for during the '80s might have been considered hip at the time but hopefully most fans can agree that this material hasn't aged as well as some of their earlier material where the band was relying more on their skill which sometimes instead resulted in some questionable choices in the sound department.

**** star songs: The Big Money (5:34) Manhattan Project (5:04) Territories (6:18)

*** star songs: Grand Designs (5:05) Marathon (6:09) Middletown Dreams (5:15) Emotion Detector (5:10) Mystic Rhythms (5:53)