CARESS OF STEEL

It would be one more album before Rush perfected their prog rock approach, but they had already attained a high level of general songwriting ability with Fly By Night, and it shows on Caress of Steel. Two of their best early songs can be found here, "Bastille Day" and "Lakeside Park", the first a fast-riffed rocker with the whole band exhibiting their ability to function as a very tight, uniform rhythm section that's actually quite progressive itself, and "Lakeside Park" being a masterfully nostalgic tribute to partying/hanging out that has an obviously weed-inpsired guitar part complimented perfectly by great soft but fast drum fills. In between these two songs is "I Think I'm Going Bald", a song that might sound lightweight when compared to some of their later greats, but I think it sounds great on this album, especially in it's exact spot on the album. In fact, the track order is a great strength of the album in general. After "Lakeside Park", things slow down to a (fortunately) drawn out ominous psych-space intro to "The Necromancer" that is somewhat reminscient of Robin Trower's "Bridge of Sighs." The second part of the track accelerates considreably to a throttling intense repeating thing that I can imagine may have inspired bands like Metallica. The piece doesn't end as well, with the third section, "Return of the Prince" having music and lyrics that clash harshly, to it's detriment, but it's not enough to completely ruin the song. Their first side-long suite, "The Fountain of Lamneth" isn't as consistant as "2112" or "Hemisphere", but none of it's bad, and there are some great moments, such as the pleasant "Panacea", and the winding "No One At the Bridge." (I love that decending bass line Geddy adds to Alex's ominous, twisting guitar part on that section.) I agree with the fans of Caress of Steel that it's one of their most underrated.