s e a n

The evolution of Rush towards a progressive rock sound continues with this album, which contains tracks of twelve and twenty minutes respectively. Most of the change is really superficial, however, as the music hasn't changed greatly since Fly By Night. "Bastille Day" has a fantastic opening riff but kind of loses its way by the end. "Lakeside Park" is nice enough if not memorable, and parts of "Fountain of Lamneth" hold together well. The rest of it I could do without, though. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is the kind of song that comes to mind when I read Peart saying he's embarrassed by some of the band's early work. Both "Necromancer" and "Fountain of Lamneth" feature Rush's approach towards epic-writing, which would continue on later albums. This approach consists of writing a bunch of shorter, separate themes and placing them one after another. Whether this makes a legitimate epic or just a side-long song cycle (as with Jethro Tull's Aqualung album) is debatable, but a bit non-sequitur. "Necromancer" consists of voice-overs of Terry Brown reading some really weak fantasy drivel followed by four-minute jams. At least "Lamneth" has some more interesting parts (particularly the relative percussive chaos of "Didacts and Narpets") and is vague enough on the concept not to be hackneyed or foolish. While Caress of Steel shows Rush changing their direction towards progressive rock, they still had one more album to go before they could truly be considered as such. This album serves as an interesting view of their evolution, and has some nice parts, but isn't of much interest on its musical merits alone. review by Sean McFee — 9-3-00 —

m a t t

Caress Of Steel marked the full arrival of Neil Peart, the conceptualist. Peart was a progressive rock fan as well as an avid reader and he was largely responsible for quickly transforming Rush from a hard rock power trio to one of the first prog-metal bands. The quality of Peart's lyrics is an issue that tends to polarize those who have heard them, but I don't think many people in either camp would disagree with the statement that the quality and tastefulness of his writing on Rush's earlier records was not at the same level of his output just a few years later. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson complemented Peart's interests in sci-fi, fantasy and deep thinking by stretching themselves musically and adopting a progressive rock influence. There is only so much that can be done with a guitar, bass and drums, however, and while Lee and Lifeson may have filled out their compositions with more detail and contrasts than your average hard rock band, the early results sounded like on-the-job training and can't be considered particularly experimental or difficult. Compared with the music of Yes or Genesis — two of the band's prog-rock influences — Rush's earlier attempts at prog sound downright crude. I thought that Rush showed some overall improvement between their debut album and Fly By Night, but Caress of Steel strikes me as a disappointing step backwards. There are a couple of decent songs here; "Bastille Day" is good hard rock in the style of "Anthem" or "Beneath, Between & Behind," and "Lakeside Park" is a tight, low-key vignette with a very nice guitar solo in the middle. Both of these songs became somewhat popular with fans at Rush's live shows, and they stayed in the band's setlists longer than any other tracks from this album. The rest of Caress of Steel, in my opinion, ranges in quality from mediocre to disastrous. "I Think I'm Going Bald" wastes a decent guitar riff (albeit derivative of Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy") on a song that is otherwise musically generic and boringly literal. "The Fountain of Lamneth" is Rush's first side-long suite and it appears that the band wasn't ready for it. "Lamneth" suffers from the typical weaknesses of failed concept pieces in that the story isn't very interesting and good tunes were apparently sacrificed to develop it: of the six parts, only "No One At The Bridge" is at all memorable to me. "The Necromancer" is shorter and flows better conceptually, but when you consider that the concept is a Lord of the Rings-inspired sword-'n-sorcery saga, who really cares? And if that's not enough to scare you off, this "epic" features narration that is so unintentionally funny in its attempt to sound macabre that I must caution against playing this piece for the first time while eating or drinking. Musically, "The Necromancer" reveals the limits of the guitar/bass/drums lineup insofar as long-form, prog-derived composition. Despite some flashes of fine technical work — by Lifeson in particular — I think that "The Necromancer" is pretty lame. And on top of it all, Caress Of Steel features some of Rush's worst production work. The muddy, two dimensional sound brings an amateurish atmosphere that is at odds with music that clearly aspires to something grander. review by Matt P. — 8-9-06 —

g a r y v

Like its two predecessors, Caress of Steel is reserved for the completists. The band is still foundering around trying to find its voice, and they emerge with a very spotty third album. Though it begins auspiciously enough with the "Bastille Day" rocker, it then plummets disastrously thanks to "I Think I'm Going Bald", which is possibly the worst Rush song ever penned in their nearly 30-year career. "Lakeside Park" doesn't fare much better unfortunately, and in fact Geddy Lee doesn't think too highly of it either, having tersely dismissed it in a retrospective interview as "a lousy song!" The proggy "epic" compositions begin to appear on this album and will continue through 1980's Moving Pictures, though they are certainly weakest here. Lee's vocals on them may be powerful and moving, especially on the stop-and-start "Necromancer", but one has to contend with jejune lyrical concepts. The "No One at the Bridge" segment of the disjointed "Fountain of Lamneth" is the most successful moment of the record, marrying bleak seafaring lyrics with mournful and effects-laden arpeggios from Lifeson. He claims the guitar work here is directly influenced by his appreciation for Steve Hackett, though I admit the connection isn't particularly obvious to these ears. Instead, it strongly reminds me of parts of the Doom II soundtrack, for whatever that's worth. Rush dubbed their Caress of Steel tour the "Down the Tubes Tour" as a reflection of where their musical careers were heading if they didn't quickly come up with something better. Frankly, it's easy to see why, even though the Rush fanboy side of me does listen to some of the material on these three earliest albums with a certain degree of fondness. review by Gary Varney — undated —