CARESS OF STEEL

After such a promising album as Fly By Night, the band decided to experiment with their art rock flourishes; with mixed results. The result is well crafted, yet incomplete compositions that need work and some tracks just need a good dosage of editing. The band had reached their most commerically unacceptable album and possibly the worst selling of their whole cataloge, but that's just being a bit harsh on such a noteworthy album.

1.Bastile Day - From the looks of it, one would never know why the band had reached such a low-point. The opening to this album is such a heavy art metal rocker that doesn't need an introduction. The French revolution is now popularized by this one track, as the song has some of Alex Lifeson's best riffing, Geddy Lee's loudest vocal and bass, and Neil Peart's most grooving drum rhythms. Excellent lyrics and time changes make this an almost proto-progressive metal track. Astounding for the span of four minutes. (10/10)

2.I Think I'm Going Bald - A last grasp at the Led Zeppelin-clone era of Rush, this is easily the worst track off of the whole album. The song is extremely disjointed and awkward. The band were trying to play a laid-back and funny track, yet the end result is laughable, to say the least. Rush does this without knowing; play extremely seriously without knowing it, and it's the main downfall for the energetic and disjointed track. (2.5/10)

3.Lakeside Park - The band easily got back on track with a truely excellent and care-free track. The song has beautiful vocals from Lee, whose basslines are unparalleled, and a turely hypnotic guitar line. Lifeson does well with overdubs, and his acoustic and electric guitars are very trippy and almost psychedelic. Peart's drumming is excellent, as his odd beats are fluid and very natural. Lyric is not as fantastical and whimsey as many of their longer stories, but it's coherrent about the youth of Peart. An excellent track to play in summertime. (10/10)

4.The Necromancer - This is easily the oddest song of the bunch, mixing Tolkien fantasy lyrics, dreadful narration and amazing instrumentation. Lyrically, the narration is as bad as it gets, yet Pearts lyrics aren't as fluid or noticable on epics such as 2112 or Xanadu. Instrumentally, it's a different story. There is so much energy in this symphonic metal track, as Lifeson plays possibly the best riff of his career, and as Lee has the best basslines anyone could ever hear. The youth is here, but the songwriting definatly needs adjustment. (8/10)

5.Fountain of Lamneth - When I first heard the track, I thought "What the hell is this?" which soon led to "This is the greatest epic ever!" which led to "It's a decent Rush song." The main problem is that all of the mini-songs in the track do not blend well with each other and are structurally flawed (unless your a pothead, of course). The instrumentation is amazing, as Lee and Lifeson showcase their amazing talent on their instruments on this post- psychedelic era progressive metal track, and Peart adds an exellent, yet stoned, drum solo with odd vocal overdubs. The lyrics aren't very good, but I think that the band would get better at writing epics in the future. (8/10)

Though most of the songs are good, it's a very inconsistent album. With one throwaway, two amazing and two "need improvement" tracks, the album is varied in quality. The album gets a 3 stars, as it's essential in the history of Rush, yet it's unessential musically. Pick of later albums before you decide to check this one out, as it takes time to grow.