RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Grace Under Pressure, when I first listened to it, I thought was the best Rush album of all time. I knew the 'hits' already, and the other songs just clicked into place immediately. I had finally found something, I thought to myself at the time, to top my beloved Roll the Bones. Sadly this didn't last. The album consists of eight tracks, and as well as the classic rock of the seventies and the OTT prog of Signals, it draws its influence from a happier, almost reggae-esque source. The two dominant tracks which survive even onto current live setlists are the Holocaust-themed Red Sector A and Distant Early Warning. The combined keyboard and guitar on the former, combined with a juddering beat and Geddy's desperate pleas of "Do I hope or do I feaar?" make it one of my favourite Rush songs of all time. Distant Early Warning, although similar, is from a less personal point of view, and speaks of the pressure of a nuclear holocaust on the shoulders of one man. Both of these songs win you over with one particularly catchy riff, which introduces the chorus, and are relatively similar in structure. 'Afterimage' is a song about suicide, and is probably the heaviest song on the album. It goes against the general theme of the rest of the album, which seems to be quite positive, and is one of the darkest songs I have ever heard Rush perform. The guitar work is extremely dominant, and it seems as if the style of the old Rush of the seventies has returned, but the members are all more experienced. These three songs are very strong, and do not suffer the fallacy of the rest of the album (with the possible exception of the Enemy Within, as the Fear series seems impervious to weakness), which has the pop-esque 'quality' of becoming old extremely quickly, even to the extent of becoming annoying. Kid Gloves is perhaps the worst culprit, as I can no longer stand to listen to it (and it's not even as if I overdid it), and before recently, the same applied to red lenses. The lively and repetitive choruses became unbearable, and unlike a sadder song, this killed the album in a certain respect. Even the Body Electric ("1-0-0-1-0-0-1 ... SOS!") suffered from this poppy problem. The guitar, almost obviously, is not very prominent in the second half of the album, and even the excellent Between the Wheels (with a slightly sadder tone) has been dragged down by its repetitive structure. Luckily the brilliance of the first three songs, as well as the slightly lesser brilliance of Between the Wheels and The Enemy Within makes the album very good nonetheless.