TEST FOR ECHO

Before this album Rush had begun their journey to merge their styles into something truly unique. The prior albums showed the intent and also the promise. But it wasn't until Test For Echo that they truly achieved their goal.

A hard edged batch of well constructed songs that blended nicely with their more lush, keyboard ladden works of the 80's. Alex Lifeson is the focal point in this LP as it is definately guitar driven but the nice melodies and thoughtful lyrics remain as does the atmosphere left over from that 80's sound which was their best sound up to this point. This may be Rush at their peak. A perfect marriage of past and present in a stunning packege of fine music.

It is an honest, well conceived work that is a pleasure to listen to over and over again. All the elements that span Rush's magnificent career are present. The wealth of knowledge the trio have garnered through the years are at the forefront along with a few new and subtle nuances. It's a clean, crisp product with tremendous upside that gets better each time I listen to it.

Everything on the album is top notch from the engineering to the song structure right down to the final output. I consider this to be a landmark album in the many phases of the history of Rush.

It's hard to imagine any fan of this band finding fault with this album because no matter what your favorite "era" for Rush, there is something here for every fan.