LogFAQs > #933829121

Panthera posted...

Did you know that Rush is the name of a band

You sure? I thought it was the name of an album...

10. Presto

The previously ranked Roll The Bones was the band's successor to Presto, and honestly I view the albums as pretty similar in a lot of ways. Stylistically, it was the band moving away from the synths that drove them throughout the 80s, and returning to showcasing Lifeson's guitar as the forefront of the music. Quality-wise, it's another very consistent album that has definite peaks, but nothing really in the way of valleys. I'm probably least a fan of War Paint and Hand Over Fist on this album, and really, I don't have much in the way of negative things to say about them. They basically just never really clicked with me in a way that makes them stand out. But if I were to do a ranking of the songs on this album, the top two would be pretty well set, and the bottom two would be set, and literally everything else would fluctuate wildly from day to day. It's all damn good material, though the flip side to that is that not much of it stands out as noticeably better than anything else.

Let's talk about the amazing though. The Pass is almost certainly the most popular and well-liked song on this album, and for damn good reason. It's utterly brilliant. It's depressing as fuck (Appropriate to its subject matter). But it conveys the emotions incredibly well, and really feels like it's coming from somebody who had been on the brink, even though Peart wrote it before the losses he actually suffered. And even though I've never had those feelings myself and had yet to lose anybody in that way at the time I first heard it, it hit me incredibly hard. And furthering the intense, depressing vibes, I find Red Tide to be one of the more underrated things the band has done - I don't recall it ever getting any notable love or popularity, but it hits a lot of the same high quality points as The Pass, even if it doesn't score quite as high in my book. The subject matter is obviously different, and it doesn't hit quite as hard, but it's still a very intense piece that sends a clear message on a topic that is a lot more controversial than it should be.

The rest of the album is incredibly solid top to bottom as well. Songs like Scars, Superconductor and Anagram (For Mongo) provide more upbeat, easy listening to contrast the depressing vibes of the best tracks on this album. Presto strikes a very good emotional middle ground to tie the album together and bridge the two halves of it. Available Light does a great job of closing the album with the same sort of mood as the best of the album, but falls just a bit short in comparison to those two. But overall, for anybody who was alive and following the band throughout the 70s and 80s, I can only imagine how much of a breath of fresh air this was after the 80s, especially with the way it put a more guitar-oriented style front and center and lets Lifeson show what he's really made of, something he'd continue doing a great job with throughout the 90s and 2000s as well. I'd just say this album is basically Snakes and Arrows on crack, as far as quality goes. The most negative thing I have to say about it is that, on an emotional level, this isn't an album I'm always up to listen to.