A FAREWELL TO KINGS

Rush

Heavy Prog

4.34 | 2494 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

I've been an ardent Rush fan since 1981, and I've always wanted to get this off my chest.

The production on AFTK is... ugly! Neil sounds like he's playing a minature toy drum kit... especially the snare. Alex is making his first foray into chorus and achieves one of the muddiest guitar tones I've ever heard. The newly incorporated mini-moog sounds reedy and thin. The bass... hey, I'm a bass player, and I play a Rick primarily, love that sound... but even that sounds twangy and just plain unpleasent. I find all this odd, because the two albums it falls between (2112 & Hemispheres) have quite good production for their day. T. Brown... what happened??

Okay, AFTK is salvaged by the songwriting. This one started a series of albums for me where there weren't any weak songs, which lasted through Hold Your Fire. The writing is outstanding. But this is an album I always find myself wishing Rush would rerecord with the all the benefits of modern technology to serve the remarkable songs.

Four stars because I still view this as a prog rock classic, wretched production aside.

Northstar | 4/5 | 2006-12-7

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