A FAREWELL TO KINGS

This is another fantastic offering from Rush. It features hard rocking riffs, great acoustic passages, great synth melodies, driving bass and drum beats, great solos, great vocals, and superb lyrics as usual.

The album starts off with what I think is probably the weakest track on the album, although it is still fantastic. It starts off with a great classically- themed classical guitar intro, and then it rocks hard from then on. Next comes the highlight of the album (for me, anyway): the epic Xanadu. Great synth parts, great riffs, great lyrics, and a great solo at the end. It tells the story of a man who sought the mystical land of Xanadu, and when he found it, he was trapped there, and I guess he went insane. Although the music is never very dark, so I don't know. It's a great song either way.

Side Two starts off with the classic hit single, Closer to the Heart. With its great acoustic intro, hard rocking main body and great lyrics, this track gets an A++++ from me. Next comes Cinderella Man, a great song with great keyboards played by Geddy. I think for some reason Geddy wrote the lyrics. They're not as good as Peart's, but they're still great. Next comes the super mellow Madrigal, great synths here, great melodies, great lyrics, just great. Cygnus X1, the epic closer, rocks really hard and tells of people who got sucked into 'the black hole of Cygnus X1.' This leads on to Rush's next album, Hemispheres, in which the first track is Cygnus X1 book two.

So all in all this is one of Rush's best album, hard-prog rock at its best, Highlights: Xanadu, Closer to the Heart, and Cygnus X1.