RUSH

Not as serious as their subsequent albums, but it does seriously rock. If you're accustomed to Moving Pictures, Permanent Waves, or even 2112, you may be shocked by this one, but not because the playing is bad - more that the style of music is so different. Yes, they continued to rock this hard after they employed the progressive elements, but their debut is more of a straight-ahead hard rock album, with the exception of a few proto-prog moments in the Deep Purple vein, like the jam in "Working Man." They're not all great songs, but they are all at least good songs, and there are a few standouts - the aforementioned "Working Man", "In the Mood" is some good driving boogie-rock, and "What You're Doing" could have easily been on Led Zeppelin II. John Rutsey is actually not a bad drummer, doing a fine job on the closing track, and Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee already exhibit great technical ability that is noticably above average for a band playing this type of rock, as is instantly apparent on the album's best track, the opening, "Finding My Way", with a greatly memorable rocking riff from Lifeson that fades in and Geddy Lee's punch-a-hole-through-the-sky vocals being some of the most powerful in the genre.