Rush

A Farewell To Kings

Is this my favorite album?

Review Score:

(10/10)
In another review of Rush's "2112" album, I remarked that it was the best album ever. This album, gives me pause when I say that, however.

While it provided the band with my least favorite Rush song (thanks to too many repetitions of so-called-metal radio stations) and their biggest hit, it also is chock with all manner of other incredible songs.

Three songs- A Farewell to Kings, Xanadu, and Cygnus X-1 provide enough musical epic-ness to soothe the hardcore Sci-Fi/Fantasy beast within anyone. Odd time signatures and the vastness of the subject matter coupled with the way the music supports the lyrics make this album hard to beat in the Rush lexicon.

Still, if you are one to buy an album for only one song (which would be a misread in this case) Cygnus X-1 is undoubtedly the best treatment of a song about space as is possible in my mind.

While I like "I, Mother Earth"'s "One More Astronaut", it is more about the astronaut, and less about the ship and the space it moves through. Simply astounding. What is also amazing is that they can do this song live without a hitch. I am not yet a musician, so maybe it's easy musically to figure that out- but still after 15+ years of listening to this song- I still am blown away by it.

On another note, anyone who has ever read the "Space Lord" comic book by John Byrne, should listen to this song.

Anyway, it's a perpetual toss-up for me between 2112(which is not as accessible as this album), A Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, Grace Under Pressure (for different reasons) and Moving Pictures, as far as favorites go.

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