MOVING PICTURES

Review Nº 844

"Moving Pictures" is the eighth studio album of Rush and that was released in 1981. Following the same formula of their previous studio album "Permanent Waves", "Moving Pictures" follows a more radio friendly musical format and includes several of the band's signature tracks. This is one of Rush's most famous albums. This is also the album that makes part of the transition to synthesizers that became dominant on their succeeding albums. The album represents the breaking point between Rush's rock-n-roll roots and the more studio stuff they've been doing since. It still has some great guitar moments by Lifeson, some great instrumental work in general, and several other classic Rush's tracks.

"Moving Pictures" is the fourth and the last studio album of the band that belongs to their second musical phase. The other three studio albums of that phase are their fifth studio album "A Farewell To Kings" released in 1977, their sixth studio album "Hemispheres" released in 1978 and their seventh studio album "Permanent Waves" released in 1980.

The line up on the album is Geddy Lee (lead vocals, bass guitar, bass pedals, Oberheim polyphonic synthesizer, Mini Moog, OB-X and Moog Taurus), Alex Lifeson (electric and acoustic six and twelve string guitars and Moog Taurus) and Neil Pearl (drums, timbales, gong, bells, glockenspiel, wind chimes, bell tree, crotales, cowbell and plywood).

"Moving Pictures" has seven tracks. All lyrics were written by Neil Pearl, except "Tom Sawyer" that was written by Pearl and Pye Dubois and all music was written by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson except "YYZ" that was written by Lee and Pearl. The first track "Tom Sawyer" is a great song and a showcase of enough progressive musical elements in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. It features a futuristic keyboard introduction and it has a good drum work by Pearl in the back to give Lee's bass, keyboard and vocals spotlight, while Lifeson plays a convincingly enough classic rock guitar. The second track "Red Barchetta" is the second lengthiest song on the album and has a very simple musical structure for a progressive rock song. It has great riffs, great audible bass, great subtle drum work and the vocal work is just we can expect from Lee. This is probably one of the less good tracks on the album, but fortunately it still gets the job very well. The third track "YYZ" is a super technical instrumental piece of music with a thundering drum work and heavy guitar riffs. It's the song most technically as well as the most structurally complex on the album. This is a great instrumental that pacing it's way quickly through near impossible riff age and crunching. It's quite fun to hear and is also probably quite fun to see live. The fourth track "Limelight" is a song with an amazing tune, not only because of the time signature dominant in the most of the song, but also because of the guitar solo and the general feeling of the song as a whole. It talks about the pains and pleasures of being in the limelight. This is a song with a great warm feel and it became as one of my favourite songs on the album. The fifth track "The Camera Eye" is the last one of the Rush's epics as the band didn't put such long tracks on their future studio albums. The song has some great guitar solos and after the two minutes prelude, the song has a very compact musical structure. The musical movements of great tracks like "2112" and "Xanadu" are nowhere to be seen. This is really a great song with amazing musical changes as far as tempo, signature and sound is concerned. The sixth track "Witch Hunt" paints a grim image of the past with amazing lyrics and is very well coloured by Lee's vocals. The haunting synthesizers, the chimes in the begging, the sound of wind fading into the sound and the drums that sound like a march make of it a great song. This song is amazingly creepy but yet beautiful. The seventh and last track "Vital Signs" is surprisingly a very catchy song and closes the album on a very high musical note. It also features the best bass lines of the all album. Despite it sounds a bit poppy, I sincerely think that no one should complain about this song as a closer of a Rush's album. It sounds great, really.

Conclusion: There's not the slightest doubt that "Moving Pictures" is a great album. It continues their new musical direction with more short songs started with "Permanent Waves". But, "Moving Pictures" is even a better album. At the very end and after several listenings, we immediately figure out that we are in presence of another masterpiece of Rush. This is the last addition in what I like to call "Rush's Holy Trinity", with "A Farewell To Kings" and "Hemispheres". It has some of the most straightforward and known songs by the group with some tasty touches of their classic creativity and inspiration in the rest of the tracks. It's maybe with a bit of hybrid sounds and weakness, but it still is a great album on its own by one of the most legendaries progressive rock bands. I'll say that if you enjoy progressive rock music, you should definitely get this album and then get ready to be blown away by some advanced and proficient musical instrumentation. It became also an everlasting testament to their great cohesion and talent as a band. If you're new to the Rush, this is a great place to start because is easily accessible and a must have to any fan of progressive music.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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