A FAREWELL TO KINGS

2112, A Farewell To Kings, and Hemispheres work together as a trilogy with a sort of loose storyline connecting them, and in my mind, A Farewell to Kings is the weakest of the three, but it's still a very strong album, and in some ways it's the most creative of their 70's releases. The band were starting to experiment with more progressive structures and instruments, and their writing style was definitely evolving further away from the standard hard rock at the start of their career. They had alread started using synths and Mellotron on the previous album, but now both Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson are using those Taurus pass pedals that always give prog arrangements such a warm, full sound, and Neil Peart is using a plethora of extra percussion instruments in addition to his constantly improving skills at the regular drum set, which has at this point reached the level of virtuoso. As stated above, the album is the middle part of a trilogy, with "Cygnus X-1 - Book One" serving as the first part of a half hour long epic that is continued on the next album, Hemispheres, and partly due to that, and some other element that I can't quite pin down - perhaps the brevity of the album, or maybe just an assortment (although at a very low level) of relatively weak moments throughout, both 2112 and Hemispheres work better as standalone albums, but it does contain the classic "Closer To the Heart", and "Xanadu" is not only one of Rush's best, but indeed one of the best prog rock songs ever, and A Farewell to Kings is still essential to all Rush fans and is an essential part of the trilogy. Much great music to be found here. 4.5 stars.