PERMANENT WAVES

Permanent Waves is the start of a new era in Rush's history, an era which is much more radio friendly than ever before. The synthesizer plays a bigger role on this album than it did on any Rush album before, also, no more epics like Xanadu and the Cygnus X-1 suite are heard on this album, instead of those we'll be amused with some mini-epics, less than ten minutes.

The album starts out with one of Rush's most popular songs, "Spirit Of Radio". This song is a quite powerful opener, fast guitar and heavy drums are heard immediately and the song continues with some nice riffs and enjoyable verses. Though the song sounds nice, it isn't really a prog song; it's only five minutes in length, there is a lot of catchy music, and there are no incredibly complex riffs. The only real "prog" thing in here is the tempo change near the end of the song and a terrible reggae riff, I have absolutely no clue why a short reggae part had to be in, but it doesn't do the song any good in my opinion. "Spirit Of Radio" is a nice song, not one of Rush's bests however.

Next is "Freewill", another radio friendly song. "Freewill" is however, more complex than "Spirit Of Radio", it has more different sorts of verses and more interesting chord changes. The lyrics also are pretty good, Neil's lyrics this time are more philosophic than most of the earlier lyrics he wrote. After about three minutes the song turns into a sudden guitar solo, which is in fact pretty proggy. The solo is very complex, though there's no real emorional guitar playing, Alex just shreds this one. I think "Freewill" is more proggy than "Spirit Of Radio" but sill is a radio friendly, pretty straight forward rock song, it is not bad though, it is actually one of my personal favorites from the band.

"Jacob's Ladder" is the first mini-epic on Permanent Waves. It opens with Bolero like drums and contains a very short vocal section. Most of the song is instrumental, and after a bit more than one minute that starts. Alex plays a very good guitar solo, a bit in the style of YYZ from the Moving Pictures album. After that, the song is lead by futuristic synthesizers and strange electronic sounds, not neccisarily epic, but it sounds very fine. Geddy throws in some very electronic vocals and the song gets guitar driven again, this time not as epic as the solo, but still nice. Another very short vocal part makes it's entry and before you realise it the song is over. "Jacob's Ladder" is a very good song, it has quite a lot different parts packed in only seven minutes, but at the same time, those seven minutes prevent it from becoming epic.

"Entre Nous" is one of the more unknown songs from the album. The intro is pretty enjoyable and actually the song doesn't get unenjoyable at any moment. The song is in the same style as "Freewill", which means it's not a very proggy song, the big difference between "Entre Nous" and "Freewill" is, that this song is much more straight forward than "Freewill", it doesn't have a complex structure and is probably the most straight forward song of the album. "Entre Nous" is not bad at all, but not a special song in any way.

"Different Strings" is a ballad. The song starts out with pretty uninteresting lyrics, but as the song progresses those lyrics get better, The song is the shortest of the album, and it isn't very proggy, like most of the album. The outro of the song is however, very interesting, it is a pretty good fade out guitar solo. I've always thought "Different Strings" could be perfect to be the intro of a lengthy suite, the fade out solo being the link of two parts, unfortunately it's not. "Different Strings" is the least enjoyable track on the album, it is very decent though.

"Natural Science" is the three part suite and the most progressive song on the album. "Tide Pools" is the first part of the song, it contains sounds of water and acousting guitar playing. "Tide Pools" is in fact only the interesting intro to what's coming, by that I mean "Hyperspace", the second part of the song. "Hyperspace" is by far the best moment from the album, it is based around an incredibily powerful riff, that has been very influencial to bands such as Dream Theatre. Hyperspace contains some good vocals and a great guitar solo, also it has some very interesting sound effects that I can't really discribe. Those sound effects support the vocals and give it a very futuristic feel, just as "Jacob's Ladder". The longest part of "Natural Science" is "Permanent Waves", it is more straight forward than "Hyperspace" and is somewhat dissapointing, as you might expect something incrediblily epic after having heard "Hyperspace". Though it is kind of straight forward, "Permanent Waves" is a very enjoyable part, as it contains excelent drumming and overall really fits in with the whole song. "Natural Science" is the progressive highlight of the album, I really like the production of it, it might sound a bit too polished, but I really like the beebs and other gimmicks on the background, great song.

Permanent Waves is a very good album, it is not as progressive as Rush's earlier work, but it's very enjoyable and moody. I think Permanent Waves is a very good start of the 80's for Rush, though I'm not really sure which album I like more, this one or Moving Pictures, which would be released one year later. I will give Permanent Waves a four star rating, it isn't perfect, but contains some of Rush's best songs (Freewill, Jacob's Ladder, Natural Science).

Edit: My opinion on this album has changed, and I now find it easily Rush's best. I also appreciate all the songs much more, making it almost a perfect album for me. Therefor I will change the four star rating into a five star rating.