After completing my Rush studio album collection, I decided to listen for an extended period to each album in the order released to observe how the band evolved over 40 years. My impression of earlier albums are linked at the end.
Caress of Steel
Caress of Steel picks up right where Fly by Night left off. The band did two multi-movement monolith songs and three shorter pieces suitable for radio play. Anyone who follows the band knows how that went with this album. Sales were poor and the concert tour disappointing to the point the band called it the “Going Down the Tubes” tour.
While I don’t think the album is among their very best albums, I do think it is very underrated and overlooked. Part of the problem with it is that people didn’t know what to make of these long thematic songs. People were confused by By-Tor and the Snow Dog, and this album had two more of those kinds of songs.
Rush really took a risk with this album. Everyone but the band seemed to be against it, including the fans. The long form songs they started on Fly by Night and continue here still haven’t been perfected. All of the scores are a bit simpler and don’t fit quite as well together as they do on later albums. In fact, it is with the next album, 2112, that I think they finally got it right, but that’s a subject for another day.
If you’ve only heard Rush on the radio, chances are good you have never heard any of these songs. The wikipedia entry for this album says the first three songs are heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin. Only one of them sounds like the material they released on their first album to me. Regardless, I can point to Led Zeppelin influence on Clockwork Angels. It’s part of who Alex Lifeson is as a guitar player and his Zeppelin influence can’t be erased any more than Keith Moon’s influence can be erased from Neil Peart’s drumming.
The Tracks
1. Bastille Day 4:37
This is, in my opinion, the best song on the album. It’s has a radio-friendly melody and a great rhythm guitar line. (It also happens that Rush borrowed from it quite accidentally in for the song Headlong Flight on the Clockwork Angels album, which I will review 17 albums from now.)
Who but Neil Peart writes a song about the French Revolution? If you’re into history at all, this song is just fun. A YouTube reviewer had issues with Geddy’s voice both on this song, and says he was still “finding himself.” The band as a unit was still trying to find their identity and they hit it more often on Caress of Steel than on Fly by Night, but Bastille Day isn’t one of the songs they miss. Sorry Mr. Gamepriest2000, you’re wrong on that count. This is classic-sound Rush all the way. I give this song an A-.
2. I Think I’m going Bald 3:38
This is an interesting song in a number of ways. first, it has a humorous title and the beginning is humorous. Second, it sounds like it belongs on the first album and really is the only track where I see a great deal of Zeppelin influence. Finally, the lyrics are textbook Neil Peart “high on life feel good about doing things your own way” poetry. It’s one of those songs where they stray from their trademark sound, but the song works. I give it a B+.
3. Lakeside Park 4:07
This song feels like it belongs on the B-side of 2112, a side I like very much. (For younger readers, this means the second side of a vinyl LP.) It’s just a collection of memories, and a happy sound that contrasts dramatically with the very dark fourth track.
According to a quote attributed to Raw magazine, Geddy Lee himself had this to say:
…if I hear “Lakeside Park” on the radio I cringe. What a lousy song!
Come on, Geddy, it isn’t that bad! I give the song a B.
4. The Necromancer 12:29
This song in three movements is very dark, as the name might suggest. It has the unique feature of Alex Lifeson speaking an introduction to each movement. Unfortunately, the recording level is so low I have to crank up the volume to make it loud enough to understand what he says.
The story line of this song is another fantasy-themed tale. It’s related to By-Tor and the Snow Dog, though only clues are dropped as to the relationship. My take is that Prince By-Tor was enchanted by the Necromancer, and was during By-Tor and the Snow Dog, since he returns a hero in this song after the spells are broken.
The music itself has a lot of rhythmic and textural change, which is attractive. It didn’t seem to have any kind of thematic consistency from movement to movement, and that’s something I like to see. It’s part of why I very much like Pete Townshend’s rock operas, especialy Quardrophenia. Rush did start to do that in the next track, and did even more on 2112. I give this song a B+, pulled below an A mainly because I can’t hear the Lifeson monologs.
5. The Fountain of Lamneth 19:58
This one flows a lot better than does Necromancer. I love how the acoustic and electric guitars are arranged. It also has some recurrence of themes and mood represented by certain instrument voices. The latter is something Rush played really well on 2112. This is very much a precursor to that next album.
It’s a long song at a smidge under 20 minutes, consuming the entire B side of the vinyl. Included in the instrument voices is Geddy Lee’s own singing voice. While he didn’t play back and forth dialog the way he would on 2112, he does show some great versatility by making good use of both a soft and melodic voice and that shrill voice with heavy vibrato, and he does it with excellent effect.
The theme of this song is a lot more subtle than that of Necromancer, but it still plays out a voyage of discovery. I do think that second movement, Didacts and Narpets, suffers from 20-20 hindsight. This part consists mainly of a drum solo, and frankly, Peart’s drum soloing technique and arrangement just wasn’t as good as it is now. This drum work was simplistic in both voice and execution in comparison to the solos you hear on the last four or five concert CDs or DVDs. but that’s just being spoiled by what Peart can do today. The actual inclusion of drum solo work as the bulk of this second movement is brilliant because it represents constant harping from parents and teachers. Sometimes that’s just noise to us.
I give this song an A-.
Conclusion
While Caress of Steel is not among the band’s very best work, it is much better than its reputation. A lot of experimenting went on during the creation of this album, and that experimenting was formative and important to the band’s future work and success.
I give the album a B+.
I gave Fly by Night an A-.
I gave Rush a C+
