FLY BY NIGHT

The band recorded their second album, Fly by Night, in early 1975. Fly by Night marked a massive shift in Rush's sound, away from the blues-oriented hard rock of their debut and toward something much more complex and sonically varied. It acts as something of a bridge between their debut and their future progressive explorations.

"Anthem", the opener, demonstrates this bridging quality. It still falls into the realm of hard rock with noticeably bluesy touches, but the riffs are much more technical and distinct. There's no way in hell anyone would mistake this for some obscure Led Zeppelin track, as many radio listeners did when they first heard "Working Man". The same cannot be said of "Best I Can" or for the verses of "Beneath, Between & Behind", though.

Side 1 closes out on the mini-epic "By-Tor and the Snow Dog", which crams eight distinct movements into only eight-and-a-half minutes. The sci-fi lyrics, snarling guitars, and complex rhythms clearly laid out the band's ambitions for future records. Reportedly, this song flummoxed their label, who wanted the band to stay in their previous, Zeppelinesque vein. And in the label's defense, this would be baffling, coming from a band that had released "Working Man" less than a year earlier.

Side 2 doesn't have anything near the scope or scale of "By-Tor and the Snow Dog", but it does have the album's title track, which is one of Rush's best short songs. Unfortunately, it also contains "Rivendell", one of my least-favorite Rush songs. It's a five-minute acoustic meditation that feels twice as long, and (aside from the lyrics) is more stylistically in line with Bruce Springsteen's most boring moments.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2020/04/27/deep-dive-rush/