A FAREWELL TO KINGS

Well, this is kinda the bridge album from hard rock to prog rock. A good album, but I can imagine the hard rock fans listening to the first couple of electric guitar chords on the title song and immediatly take the disc out and shoot it with arrows. My review

A farewell to king's- The first minuete is what makes this song! Just a beautiful classical guitar solo, nothing else suporting it. Now I am not a fan of the word overated, but Alex lifeson is the most overated guitar player on the planet. he is praised for his solo's and his riffing, but for those of us who know guitar probably know he ONLY uses the pentatonic scale, NOTHING else, and it disgusts me coming from one of the prog rock "gods". And this first minuete relieves him of some of his shame. Well, anyways, After the pretty guitar part, the electrics come in and basically ruin the song, I feel nothing has any flow to it, not the vocals keyboards or drums, not the best opener. 3/5

Xanadu- A much better song, with elegant songwriting, courtesy of peart, and excellent and limber bass lines. The vocals are wonderful as well, and the opening riff is very cool! The concept of the song is about a person or traveler hoping to find eternal life amongst the immortals, and he believes he deserves it with all of his discepline and training. Though it is certainly not an epic, a wonderful and great song, best song on the album! 5/5

Closer to the heart- A onderful and uplifting song! Certainly NOT prog though, so I am not allowed to give it over a 4 on my scale rating thingy, but I wont deny it's amazingness. I think it's about world piece or something, anyways really nice twelve string work, bland solo, but an amazing bassline. If this was about the song live, I would consider it prog, but I wont go into that. either way when I was upsest with classic rock, my band and I did a cover of this little tune!3.5/5

Cinderella man- This song makes no sense to me, out of knowhere we have a song that goes against this ongoing flow that this album is creating. Really a low point in rush album making. I usually just skip this song when listening to the album... actually a lot of Rush albums have these "mood ruiners" Moving pictures- vital sighns, Permanent waves- freewill, Hemisheres- circumstances, and plenty more. I refuse to rate this song, cause I do not want to offend.

Madrigal- a pretty little song, filler to the much larger song coming. 4/5

Cygnus x-1- A wonderful song to end the album on a high note. The only problem is that the music is a bit pompous and the intro ends up taking up half the song. Well, afterwards Geddy starts singing, and although I do not know what the song means,his vocals are excellent! Besides the overly done intro this song is quite excellent! 4.5/5

Rush will go on to make better albums, but this one is good to listen to if you want the entire rush sound!