FLY BY NIGHT

Here's where things get interesting: who in the annals of rock has written a riff as convuluted yet catchy as "Anthem"? More fiery ROCK musicianship in "Best I Can," with that great stop/start riff, and then the utter kill of "Beneath, Between Behind" (and it just makes me sad that you don't hear bands that can play and write like this anymore). "By-Tor" always confused and freaked me out, it has some great rocking parts but it is just flat-out Weird, especially those Snow Dog sounds Geddy does with the bass. Back when I first got this album my 13 year old brain didn't quite know how to process this one... "Fly By Night" is waaay overplayed but damn catchy and demostrates the band's ability to mix the potential hits with the freak stuff. I'm going to piss some people off, but "Rivendell" is kind of annoying partly because of the way the vocals are processed. "In The End" is beautiful, and has 1 of those riffs that will stick in your head for weeks. Incredibly, this is their 2nd album!