FLY BY NIGHT

"Fly by Night" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Canadian progressive rock act Rush. The album was released through Mercury Records in February 1975. A lineup change has occured since the 1974 self-titled debut album as drummer John Rutsey left Rush shortly after the debut album was released. He was replaced by Neil Peart, who also toured with Alex Lifeson (guitars), and Geddy Lee (bass, vocals) in support of the debut album. Neil Peart would immediately start contributing lyrics to the band´s music, and he has written all lyrics on "Fly by Night", except for "Best I Can" and "In the End", which were written by Geddy Lee.

Compared to the Led Zeppelin influenced hard rock of the debut album, the music on "Fly by Night" is slightly more sophisticated and varied. There´s still a strong hard rock foundation in the music, but it´s obvious the band were interested in moving in a more progressive direction. So "Fly by Night" features both hard rock riffs and driving rhythms as well as more intricate details. The 8:39 minutes long mini-epic "By-Tor & The Snow Dog" is the most obvious example of the band´s newfound progressive rock direction, but it´s not as such representative for the rest of the material featured on the album.

The change on the drummer position is heard throughout the album. Rutsey was arguably a well playing hard rock drummer, but Peart has a few more tricks up his sleeve. His slightly fusion influenced drumming style and occasional experiments with time signatures bring a new more sophisticated dimension to the band´s music, although he can also rock hard when that is called for. The musicianship is generally of high class on all positions though. Geddy Lee is not only a skilled and distinct sounding vocalist but a brilliant and quite busy bass player too, and Lifeson delivers both hard rocking riffs and well played solos. It´s on this album his chord progressions also began going down other roads than the debut´s predominantly blues based hard rock progressions. It´s a combination of the two here though.

"Fly by Night" is a very well produced album, featuring a powerful, organic, and detailed production, which suits the material on the album perfectly. The songwriting on the 8 track, 37:57 minutes long album is overall of a good quality too, and although some tracks don´t stand out as much as others, it´s an entertaining album throughout. Highlights include "Anthem" and "By-Tor & The Snow Dog", while Rush probably shouldn´t have ventured into fantasy ballad territory with "Rivendell", which doesn´t really work that well and also feels a bit out of place on the album. All things considered "Fly by Night" is a quality release though and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.