HEMISPHERES

The more I listen to post All The Worlds A Stage Rush, the more I realise how good the band were in their early period. After their first live album the band closed one door and opened a new one, but Rush also lost a characteristic edge that graced albums like Caress Of Steel and 2112 for all the naivete of those mid seventies albums, but at least those albums contained a substance. Albums of their time, sure, but much easier albums in terms of playability than Farewell To Kings, and especially this one, Hemispheres. There is an innocent wonderment lost as the band progressed, they really left behind all the nuances of the old Rush as they progressed, and it is an almost forced progression to my ears with this one. The music takes a back seat to the lyrical narratives of drummer Neil Peart's obsession with all things sci-fi, social and dumb. The music lacks a bite and take the lyrical context nowhere. Alex Lifeson's guitar always soared and took flight, but now he's rigid and dull, mainly hanging on full chord sweeps and concentrating on time signatures to the point that he, and the band, lose all sense of composition, making for an awkward use of space on many occasions. The music is incidental to Peart's lyrics, sung by Geddy Lee, as always, but lacking any depth to make them exciting and/or visual without getting (or gedding if you will) irritated by his incessant whine. In fact this whole album comes across as a banal affair on purpose, and it just pisses me off.