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Rush - Caress of Steel CD (album) cover

CARESS OF STEEL

Rush

 

Heavy Prog

3.55 | 1433 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

FruMp
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Not the most cohesive or memorable RUSH album but shouldn't be written off - well worth a listen.

I've been listening to RUSH for about 3 years and had listened to the 2 epics on the album 'the necromancer' and 'the fountain of lamneth' extensively and quite enjoyed them and wondered why people dismissed this album as rather mediocre for RUSH, only recently have a listened to the album in it's entirety and now I'm inclined to agree with their opinion.

The album starts out fairly well with the relatively straight up rock on roll track 'bastille day', not bad but not particularly prog or interesting. Next up 'I think I'm going bald' is a joke really, the song is substandard straight up bluesy rock'n'roll with silly subject matter and some generic pentatonic solo. 'Lakeside park' is similarly unenthusiastic, pretty much straight up rock as for as RUSH goes, the first 3 songs are easily forgettable and really bring this album down.

'The Necromancer' is a fantastic song, easily the best on the album, it starts out with an admittedly cheesy spoken word intro about the necromancer and a group of heroes which is easily forgiven once the song takes flight first into a mellow slowly building jam. The song continues on and gains steam moving into a sensational riffy and funky jam with some great soloing before reaching the climax of a fast driving section ending with a mellow acoustic section. This is a great precusor to the song writing featured on their classic next album '2112'.

'The fountain of lamneth' the side long epic finishing the album is a bit hit and miss, there is a lot to like here but it does get a bit boring and simply isn't as interesting or cohesive as RUSH's later sidelong masterpieces '2112' and 'Hemispheres', well worth a listen though it is on the whole a good song.

Overall Caress of Steel is a decent album, not nearly RUSH's best nor nearly their worst, recommended for fans of RUSH's earlier more progressive song writing (just skip the first 3 tracks), 'the necromancer' and 'the fountain of lamneth' make it well worth the listen.

FruMp | 3/5 |

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