Rush

A Farewell To Kings

Rush Take Their Sound To A New Level

Review Score:

(8/10)
Rush had found themselves as a band with their 1976 breakthrough prog-rock classic, 2112. The following year, they released this disc, A Farewell To Kings, a loose conceptual piece that finds the band further exploring just what they could do compositionally and instrumentally. Here, they do it quite well.
The album starts off in a way that probably surprised fans -- a gentle classical guitar with Moog synth and chimes to accentuate the mood. Then the band pause and kick into the title track. The song is not the best, but sets the tone for the rest of the album with its sudden changes and complex arrangement.
The band's addition of a wider range of sounds -- guitarist Alex Lifeson's use of doubleneck and classical guitars, bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee's addition of synths, and drummer Neil Peart's array of new percussion toys, such as the aforementioned chimes, along with woodblocks, gongs, and a xylophone -- created a much larger canvas for their most ambitious work to date. The full potential of that can be heard in the grandeur of the classic Xanadu. It clocks in at about 11 minutes, and glistens with a cinematic vista of sounds and moods. It is arguably one of the finest moments in Rush's prog era, if not their whole career.
The token 'hit' can be found here to balance out the album's longer pieces in the form of the 2.52 bittersweet Rush standard Closer To the Heart. It cracked the Top 100 and gave Rush a bit of airplay, but it was their live shows and albums that were making the most impact. Still, the simplicity and idealism of the track about making a better future for our world is, if not naive, then atleast catchy.
The album continues with another catchy mid-tempo rocker called Cinderella Man, with lyrics penned by Lee (all the other lyrics are by drummer Neil Peart). It contains a nice acoustic guitar line and an interesting middle section.
The only clunker here is Madrigal, which sounds a bit corny and forced. Thankfully, it is short.
The album ends with the magnus opus Cygnus X-1, another futuristic sci-fi inspired gem in the same vein as 2112, only much shorter than that 20 minute + track. Cygnus runs at about 10 minutes, and contains one of the best prog-rock riffs ever, highlighted by the fat, slapped basswork of the formidable Lee. The song then literally blasts off into the outer reaches of space as the storyline takes the listener into the 'heart of Cygnus', a blackhole. The song ends with our hero being sucked into the blackhole and the lyric sheet inside the album says "To be continued". Guess you have to buy the next album to learn what happens, right?
The production here is nice. The guitars are still heavy, but have a cleaner, leaner sound. Everything is taut, and some could call it cold, in its execution. But this is not Bread. This is Rush, and you get everything that made them cool back then here. Geddy Lee's shrieks, Neil Peart's idealistic lyrical musings and octopus-like drumming, and Alex Lifeson's strong able rock guitar atmospeheres. If you don't like Rush, this album is not really going to change that fact. But if you are into prog-rock, or want to learn more about a uniquely bizarre rock band, this is a good disc to have.

More Reviews: