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CARESS OF STEEL

Rush

Heavy Prog


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Rush Caress of Steel album cover
3.55 | 1431 ratings | 150 reviews | 17% 5 stars

Excellent addition to any
prog rock music collection

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Studio Album, released in 1975

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Bastille Day (4:36)
2. I Think I'm Going Bald (3:35)
3. Lakeside Park (4:07)
4. The Necromancer (12:30) :
- i. Into the Darkness (4:20)
- ii. Under the Shadow (4:25)
- iii. Return of the Prince (3:51)
5. The Fountain of Lamneth (19:50) :
- i. In the Valley (4:17)
- ii. Didacts and Narpets (1:00)
- iii. No One at the Bridge (4:15)
- iv. Panacea (3:12)
- v. Bacchus Plateau (3:12)
- vi. The Fountain (3:48)

Total Time 44:38

Line-up / Musicians

- Alex Lifeson / guitars (classical, steel, 6- & 12-string electric & acoustic)
- Geddy Lee / bass, vocals
- Neil Peart / drums, percussion

With:
- Terry Brown / co-arranger, co-producer, engineer

Releases information

Artwork: Hugh Syme

LP Mercury ‎- SRM-1-1046 (1975, Canada)
LP Anthem - ANR 1603 (1977, Canada)

CD PolyGram ‎- P2 22543 (1986, US)
CD Anthem Entertainment - WANK 1003 (1989, Canada)
CD Mercury - 534 625-2 (1997, Europe) Remastered by Bob Ludwig & Brian Lee

FLAC (2015, Ponomusic) Hi Res download in 192kHz/24bit lossless files from remaster by Sean Magee

Thanks to ProgLucky for the addition
and to projeKct for the last updates
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RUSH Caress of Steel ratings distribution


3.55
(1431 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(17%)
17%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(39%)
39%
Good, but non-essential (34%)
34%
Collectors/fans only (8%)
8%
Poor. Only for completionists (2%)
2%

RUSH Caress of Steel reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Sean Trane
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk
2 stars 2,5 stars really!!!

Rush trying to do their future classic music . Did not really get this one right, as this is sometimes sloppy . This has the markings of a band still learning their trade .

Two tracks hold the proghead's attention: The Necromancer is really dark but leaves me rather cold and Fountain of Lamneth, which is just a little pretentious only because they are trying too hard , too quick and too early. The rest of the tracks are normal early Rush tracks that you will find from their debut up to 2112. Lakeside Park is one of those many Toronto parks where the partying was simply great. Bastille Day was a concert favorite.

My rating must seem really low, but as a early Rush fan, I thought this was fantastic but with age creeping up on me, this album has obviously not aged as well as I have!

Review by chessman
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars The first Rush release I bought, way back in '75. The sound and production is not the best, even on the cd. (I don't have the remaster, but it has to be better!) Musically, it is far superior to Fly By Night, but that isn't a hard thing to achieve! (See my review for that one!) The Necromancer is tremendous, very dark and disturbing, as is The Fountain of Lamneth. The best short song here, unnoticed by many, is - I Think I'm Going Bald. The guitar work is very impressive here, especially at the end, and the whole song is a refreshing change from bogged down 'serious' lyrics. For me, Bastille Day and Lakeside Park are only average, but the album as a whole is worth adding to your collection. But take a chance on the remastered version, it has to be an improvement!
Review by greenback
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars This is the darkest of the RUSH albums. After the dynamic and lively "Fly By Night", it is surprising that they produced a so dark album. No keyboards! This album has varied songs, sometimes smooth and relaxing ("Panacea"), sometimes hard rock ("Bastille Day"), sometimes fast, progressive and experimental ("Necromancer"). The guitar is absolutely outstanding! How many different guitar sounds one can really appreciate here! The sound is pretty good too!
Review by daveconn
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars Here the focus shifts to epic fantasies, but is it a case of RUSH by-toring off more than they can chew? Both "The Necromancer" and the side-long "The Fountain of Lamneth" have their moments, even if the band hasn't quite figured out the best way to bridge their ideas into a single, cohesive whole. Is The Fountain's "Panacea" simply a standalone track like "Rivendell" encased in bookends, or a logical point along a continuous path? And does the dark narration between segments of The Necromancer constitute a clever plot device or a crutch? Fortunately, these questions are tangential to the task at hand, which is enjoying the good music that does appear on "Caress of Steel" (and there's plenty of that). The opening "Bastille Day" might be their most majestic moment yet, and the coolly delivered "Lakeside Park" is another positive sign of things to come. Separating sections of the longer works from their extended families yields similar highlights, including "Under The Shadow" (featuring a riff worthy of BLACK SABBATH) and "Bacchus Plateau." RUSH still hasn't found a way to spread the sounds of a bass/guitar/drum trio across prog rock's semi-classical structures, often leaning on ALEX LIFESON to "fill up" space by stretching chords into arpeggiated patterns of mesmerizing cloth, which approximates the sound of a keyboardist but often finds them short one lead guitarist. As a result, "Caress of Steel" sometimes feels like the work of two bands, half-committed to the music of BLACK SABBATH or LED ZEPPELIN while aspiring to the work of GENESIS. Like their next album (2112), this record may not achieve every thing it sets out to do, but ambition and conviction go a long way toward minimizing the potential downside. Also, any album that can overcome a lame track like "I Think I'm Going Bald" in its midst must be pretty damn good.
Review by James Lee
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars "Bastile Day" singlehandledly brought awareness of this tragically under-celebrated holiday to legions of hard rock fans across the world, and as a song it's notably hard and relatively adventurous for 1975 rock. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is funny the first time, and possibly thoughtful upon repeated listenings (same theme as CSN's "Almost Cut My Hair", really), but apart from some good guitar work is relatively forgettable. "Lakeside Park", however, is really quite good- a flowing and vivid feel that can take you on a ride. While the longer pieces don't really work yet, "The Necomancer" is more fleshed-out than "By-Tor" was, and "The Fountain of Lamneth" takes the progression even further, preparing us and the band for what was to come on the next album. They are refining their style and their chops here- it makes a more satisfying album than "Fly By Night" but the meal won't be quite ready to eat until "2112".
Review by Blacksword
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars Its a great moment when you hear your favourite artist striving to reach greater heights in their creativity. COS was that moment for Rush, and although I didn't discover all the Rush albums in order its always a pleasure to listern to listern to COS immediately after 'Fly by night'. Fans tend to rate 'FBN higher, but I disagree. COS has 'The Necromancer' and 'The fountain of Lamneth' Two very strong conceptual tracks that form the blueprints for the bands future legthy works. The tracks I tend to avoid on this, their 'difficult' third album, are 'Bastille Day' - although most Rush fans seem to regard this as an anthem - and 'I think I'm going bald' 'Lakeside Park' is a pleasant 'ditty' with a fairly personal and reminiscent lyric, but little more.

I give this album 4 stars for 'The Necromancer' and 'TFOL' and the heady mixture of sensitivity and drama that make them. The musicianship on FBN was good enough to be getting on with, but Rush make a leap on COS, and in some ways the playing is 'cleaner' than on 'A farewll to Kings' which came out two years later. The production too is 'clean' allowing the woody organic sound of Neil Pearts drums to come through. The album has a natural and rather laid back feel to it that appeals to mea great deal, and is a sharp contrast to the screaming rock 'n' roll of FBN. A fine album!

Review by Eetu Pellonpaa
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars I found this as an interesting album, including both good and some very bad moments. The shorter tracks I'm fond of here are the "Bastille Day" and "Lakeside Park", but "I Think I'm Going Bald" is a quite terrible joke rock song I fear. The longer epics have good parts in them, but the compositions seem to be done in a haste, and there are some poor parts included too. If you like 70's hard rock and structured epics, this might be a worthy album to check out! Warning: Some very high an mighty heavy screaming vocals of the 70's included!
Review by Philo
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars his is the point in Rush albums where they were defining the sound that they would be known for throughout the seventies with more involved lyrics from drummer Neil Peart. A more hard edged guitar sound that would be more complete on the next one 2112, but compared with previous efforts A Caress Of Steel is more in line with how they would be perceived with a progressive like influence, although subtle as that may be, but it is still a worthy album that has taken a lot of stick from time to time. Personally it's my favorite Rush album and "Lake side Park" is one of the better songs from any Rush period, a song with memories of youth and drinking and simply hanging out with friends. The song is nicely juxtaposed with electric and acoustic guitar parts, something the band would work with on a few occasions if only to stamp an emotion on a song and it works a treat here with all the poignancy of the song. Some of the longer pieces are a bit experimental and lyrically can be a bit dumb but they are still listenable and surprizingly tight and even mesmeric at intervals, especially with the candid piece "Panacea" as the B side roll toward the end. All around A Caress Of Steel has a nice quality and a warm and fresh Terry Brown production.
Review by Cygnus X-2
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars This Rush album is the beginning of a long trend in their output of albums. It is the start of what some like to call their Progressive Era. I, for one, like to think of it as a warm up to 2112, for the two epics aren't fully fleshed out and are a bit abstract. Musically, this album is at a time when Rush were trying to expand their horizons, and many different tones and moods are heard. There's the heavy anthem of the album in Bastille Day, the bluesy rocker I Think I'm Going Bald, the soft modulated guitar tones on Lakeside Park, the quiet and somber tones of the Necromancer, and the alternating phased and acoustic sounds of The Fountain of Lamneth. All the right ingredients are there, but why was this album so unpopular when it came out? Frankly, I think it's because they took an unexpected turn and their fan base didn't like it.

Anyway, back to the music. The album opens with the rough and heavy Bastille Day. The drumming and bass on this track are well done, as well as the crunchy tone of Lifeson's guitar. Add in a bluesy, heavy guitar solo, and you have a masterpiece from Rush. The lyrics bring up images of a kingdom under fire, and the guillotine claiming the lives of many.

The next track, the weakest track on the album, I Think I'm Going Bald is more of a joke lyrically than anything else. The music also feels like a rehash of something from their first album, and the solo sounds similar to the one in Bastille Day, the weakest song on the album.

The final of the contemporary tracks, Lakeside Park, is a journey into the past of Neil Peart. With a introduction drum roll, the bluesy guitar shines throughout the vesres, and the clean and soft guitar shines through the choruses. This is one of my favorite Rush songs, mainly because of the modulations Alex Lifeson uses on his guitar, they are phenomenal.

The first of the epics, The Necromancer, is an abstract piece. Beginning with a very deep narrorator (Terry Brown I believe), he tells of a tale of three travellers who are greeted by misfortune when a necromancer takes them into the shadow. The music starts off quietly, with volume swells off of Lifeson's guitar. The ending is full of rejoice when old character Prince By-Tor comes and saves the day (unlike in the song off of Fly by Night, where By- Tor is the evil one). The music is rich and very well done.

The final track, The Fountain of Lamneth, is also a very abstract piece. Musically speaking, this was the most ambitious piece Rush had done to date. The riffing by Lifeson is very similar to what was going to be one of his staples later in Rush's career. It begins quietly, with acoustic guitars from Lifeson. Then one of the main riffs comes in, and it is the most memorable things on the album. It's a very rocking section that takes you straight into Didacts and Narpets. This section is a one minute drum solo from Peart and has only one line of lyric, "LISTEN!!!". The next part, No one at the Bridge, is easily the best riff Lifeson had come up with to date. The rest of the track is masterful, and it truly is one of the great Rush epics.

Overall, this is a great album. Not the best Rush album, but it has many likable qualities to it. The epics, while musically strong, are very abstract. It seemed like this album was the Prequel to 2112. Very solid effort by a very creative group. 4.5/5

Review by Gatot
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars Through this third studio album Rush had proved their existence as an excellent rock band with some exploration into more progressive style by creating a long duration epic with approximately 20 minute long of music. It's actually not the song duration that matters it's more on how diverse the music has changed from traditional mainstream rock music. And for this reason only, the band has proved even through its opening track "Bastille Day" (4:36) here I can sense that Alex Lifeson's guitar riffs are completely different with hard rock style. "I think I'm Going Bald" (3:35) is still dominated by heavy guitar riffs with excellent guitar solo. "Lakeside Park" (4:07) is an excellent track combining excellent acoustic guitar work, solid bass lines, good vocals and dynamic drumming. "The Necromancer" 12:30 is an epic that comprises three parts: I. Into the Darkness (4:20), II. Under the shadow (4:25), III. Return of the prince (3:51). The first part is ambient in nature and it has strong influence from blues. It's a very melodic part especially when it's combined with Geddy Lee's voice. At the end of first part there is a narration by a male voice followed with drum solo and guitar riffs that remark the music entrance into second part. The guitar solo is truly stunning. The music turns into a relatively complex arrangements followed with a sudden break to indicate the part 3.

The concluding track of this album is an almost 20 minute long epic "The Fountain of Lamneth" (19:50) that comprises 6 parts: I. In the valley (4:17), II. Dialects and narpets (1:00), III. No one at the bridge (4:15), IV. Panacea (3:12), V. Bacchus plateau (3:12)., and VI. The fountain (3:48). Even though the basic music is hard rock but this epic has demonstrated that Rush, since this album, embarked their musical journey into progressive style. This epic proves well on this. It perfectly combines rock and blues with good composition.

Overall, it's an excellent addition to any prog rock collection. If you are die-hard fan of Rush, owning this album is a must, I think. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Review by erik neuteboom
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars This album was almost Rush their swansong! Everything went wrong with the band, including the cover art because the chemical process turned it into too dark. The music can be devided into archetypical rock songs, progressive hardrock compositions ans tracks that are their time ahead featuring great experimental ideas. Instead of disbanding, Rush took their time and convinced everybody (including the worried record company, the fans and the musical press) with the innovative and acclaimed successor "2112". So "Caress of steel" was a kind of therapeutical experience!
Review by slipperman
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars I can't tell you how much I love this album. But I'll try anyway.

'Caress Of Steel' isn't very well-liked by many of the band's fans, and even the members of Rush generally dismiss it. I've never understood that. It's a bridge to the even better '2112', and the progression from 'Fly By Night' (released earlier that same year) is remarkable. It may be a transitional album, but what a fascinating listen.

Clearly there's a desire to stretch boundaries wider than ever, evidenced by the band's first side-long track, "The Fountain Of Lamneth". As quoted in Martin Popoff's 'Contents Under Pressure' book, Geddy admits that Rush was "influenced by Yes, Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant and ELP" at this time. "The Fountain Of Lamneth" is a clear nod to their prog influences, an epic in six parts. It carries a lot of sadness, a grey melancholy heightened by the dry recording. It also features some of Neil Peart's best drumming up to that point (especially in first part "In The Valley"). And second part "Didacts And Narpets" offers some of the weirdest Rush ever. The different parts don't always link together seamlessly, but the individual pieces are all engaging.

It's interesting to note that keyboards hadn't yet come into the band's arsenal, so much of the progginess on 'Caress Of Steel' is achieved through ambitious songwriting, extended song-lengths ("The Fountain Of Lamneth" and "The Necromancer"), and the performances. Without keyboards filling up the sound picture, as they will do in most prog, Rush's sound (at this point) remains firmly in the early metal mode, with Alex Lifeson displaying an incredibly wide range of tones and techniques. His very individualistic style starts coming into its own all over this album.

The first half offers quite a variety of song styles. You get metal bludgeon (in that cool '70s style, of course, this ain't Napalm Death) with "Bastille Day". Self-deprecating humor in the straight rock of "I Think I'm Going Bald"--the last time anything approaching humor would be heard in a Rush song for quite some time. Fun, and a great solo from Lifeson, but the only less-than-excellent moment on the album. "Lakeside Park", lyrically and musically a better version of 'Fly By Night''s "Making Memories". And of course, album climax "The Necromancer", 12-and-a-half minutes of epic storytelling and magic-making. It stands right up there with the epic darkness of early Judas Priest and the proggier Black Sabbath material.

Maybe it's that weird downer greyness (sound and presentation) that keeps people at a distance? I like that aspect. There's certainly no other album that sounds like it. And if you, like I, love early metal as well as early prog, and prefer a good bit of darkness and drama in both, 'Caress Of Steel' is a joy. Frighteningly close to perfection.

Review by Marc Baum
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars Very, very nearly there. Rush's prog flirtings would soon properly come to fruitition but they still had a hurdle or two to get over. This is one of the least popular 70s albums, and admittedly probably is one of the weakest, but that's not saying much seeing as at this time Rush were still owning left, right and centre.

These ones get slated by prog fans for their unwillingness to let go their hard rock roots, but this kicks off in fine fashion. "Bastille Day" was used to open their live shows with for years after this album was released and it's not hard to see why. It's an uptempo rocker that makes full use of the band's synergy and developing songwriting abilities. It maximises the turbulence of revolution into an almost epic structure with stellar instrumentation throughout.

"I Think I'm Going Bald" is the last gasp of the first album's heavy Zeppelin inspiration and as such isn't bad. It's Rush after all and it's funny to see this laid back and simple structure get set upon by Neil Peart, who brings strange OTT moments to it. "Lakeside Park" is really relaxed and breezy with it's gentle acoustic guitar lines and Geddy's carefree vocals. This one moves about the place in complicated Rush fashion but it's subtle and the feel is never lost within the changes.

"The Necromancer", in three parts, is probably their most flaccid attempt at an epic. Each section is musically fine but shockingly unmemorable as a whole. It's underwhelming placed next to the might of "2112" and the cheesy narration really kills it off. "The Fountain of Lamneth" follows with twice as many parts and being almost twice as long (very nearly a whooping 20 minutes!) to boot. It's much better than the previous but lacks the natural flow from one part to the next that "2112" perfected. Now, both really were in essence 6 and 7 little songs plastered together, but "2112" just felt right in it's moves from one to the next and even felt, if abstractly, like it was a perfect whole. They explore their British symphonic prog fixations a bit further here, and the Yes-isms are loud and proud. They never forget to break out the hard rocking groove and I can't fault any of the performance. It's just very tame in comparison to what they'd let loose in the next few years. That said, "Panacea" and "Bacchus Plateau" are the highlights of 6 parts that move between light and dark moments very often.

Geddy once said of this period: "You could just smell the hash oil coming off us" or something like that. Well I don't know if they were taking too much or too little but this album could might have benefitted one way or the other. Anyway, any prog fan can add this to the collection, at least for the historical value and to hear how one of the biggest and most influential prog bans in the world progressed.

Album rating: 7.5/10 points = 76 % on MPV scale = 4/5 stars

point-system: 0 - 3 points = 1 star / 3.5 - 5.5 points = 2 stars / 6 - 7 points = 3 stars / 7.5 - 8.5 points = 4 stars / 9 - 10 points = 5 stars

Review by The Crow
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars This album obviously follows the path of "Fly By Night", still very rooted in the 70's hard rock, but increasing the progressive elements...

The main difference is that the band assumed their prog condition, and they offered us two long epics: The Necromancer and The Fountain of Lamneth, with a little irregular results sometimes. Both songs have great parts, but some flaw moments too. The most enjoyable fact is the use of the acoustics and the excellent bass lines... Nevertheless, this two tracks should not be missed by any 70's Rush fans. At the moment of the realease of this album, Rush had not yet the complete abilities to write long tracks with totally satisfactory results... But I'm sure that they learned with this experience, and after "Caress of Steel" came "2112", with the first great Rush's epic.

The short tracks are a little irregular too. Bastille Day is really good, in the same style of the best rocker songs of the two first releases, and the only real classic of this album. But I Think I'm Going Bald it's just forgettable, really silly track... Nevertheless, Lakeside Park is another good song.

Best songs: Bastille Day (good Rush's rocker...), Lakeside Park (I love the acoustic guitar work...) and The Necromancer (it's long, but not boring like The Fountain of Lamneth...)

Conclusion: good transition album, strongly linked with "Fly By Night" but showing an indication of what the band will make in a future. The whole album is a little irregular, but it deserves a good listening.

My rating: ***

Review by 1800iareyay
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars Caress of Steel marks Rush's leap into prog. The last album showed hints of where the band was headed with songs like By Tor and the Snow Dog, but this album sped up the slow evolution with two monolithic numbers. Neil Peart by now established himself as lead songwriter, replacing Lee's and Lifeson's admittedly shoddy lyrics. His fascination with sci-fi would later result in the band's triumphs, but here he tried just a lttle too hard a little too soon.

"Bastille Day" opens the album with Peart's musings of the French Revolution processed through the philosophical viewpoint of Ayn Rand. The song is a great opening rocker and it's the highlight of the album.

"I Think I'm Going Bald" is the standard Rush filler. It's a silly tune that ruins the severity of the rest of the album. Now, I love humor in music, but Rush has never once succeeded in making these kinds of songs work. The humor fails miserably. This is what prevents me from ever giving Rush album five stars.

"Lakeside Park" is a poppy song tha the band pulls off quite well. Rush always was good at crafting little pop gems amidst the prog.

"The Necromancer" is the first of two proggy songs that would point in the direction of future releases. The song has the darkness that would later result in the great 2112, but here it lacks the emotion of that great piece. Also, for such a gifted band, the compostion is horrible. This track is a long letdown. The only pro is Alex's solo.

"The Fountain of Lamneth" shows real promise. Peart is in top form on drums, and Lee and Lifeson give their strings a pretty good workout. However, the song drags and Peart reached beyond his grasp with the lyrics. Overall, a pretty good song but nearly as good as later epics.

Caress of Steel is an important record for Rush, but it's a bit banal. The two satndout tracks are Bastille Day and Lakeside Park. I recommend 2112 over this album, since they hammered out all the flaws in their epics for the title track.

Grade: C-

Review by Mellotron Storm
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars "Caress Of Steel" has to be the most underrated RUSH album. I think this is an upgrade from the first two records as RUSH takes things in a new direction.This record would set the tone for the next one "2112". Although record sales for "Caress Of Steel" and the tour that went with it proved unsuccessful (although it sold 100,000 copies just like their first 2 records did), I give the band a lot of credit for sticking with this same formula when they recorded "2112". Peart said "It was weird. We loved it so much when we made it, and we were flush with the excitement of making it.Then when it didn't do well, we were kind of stung." He goes on to say "We see it as a bridge, though. We wouldn't have made "2112" if we hadn't made that. I can trace the roots of all our material fom our previous experiments."

"Bastille Day" was a concert opener for years and for good reason, as it got the crowd in the mood you could say for the whole show. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is a funny song about getting old. Love it when Geddy screams "I think i'm going bald".This one rocks out pretty good. "Lakeside Park" is a place in Neil's home town and it has a lot of meaning for me growing up in a tourist town also watching fireworks on the 24th of May and doing crazy things at the midway and on the beach.The lyrics hit home with me of a time gone by. "The Necromancer" opens with the "Into the Darkness" section, with monologue to begin the slow paced song before we are treated to some scorching guitar, and the main melody is great ! "Under The shadow" features outbursts of heavy drums and guitar as Geddy spits out the lyrics. The drums are really good and the guitar is fantastic. The final section "Return Of The Prince" is an upbeat song like light causing the dark to flee.

The second epic is "The Fountain Of Lamenth "RUSH's first side long song. Divided into 6 sections starting with "In The Valley" with acoustic guitar and reserved vocals to open before things get loud and Geddy lets it rip 2 minutes in. "Didacts And Narpets" features some amazing drum work and chaotic vocals. "No One At The Bridge" is a great section, with nice guitar melodies and incredible vocals. "Panacea" is a good song with acoustic guitar and gentle vocals. "Bacchus Plateau" opens with guitar, with vocals and drums to follow. And finally the last section "The Fountain" with a heavy intro and intense vocals that give way to a pastoral climate.This contrast of light and heavy continue throughout the song.

This really is the start of an amazing stretch of records where RUSH could do no wrong. So yes this is raw and certainly not perfect, but this is where the monster starts to rise.

Review by Prog Leviathan
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Following the artsy dabbling done on "Fly by Night", Rush upped the ante with two extended songs on their next album which show their burgeoning experimentation-- both of which don't really pay off. Instead of a tight, solid album like "FBN", we have a somewhat messy smattering of songs with the band playing well, but seemingly confused with what they're playing.

The chugging opening of "Bastille Day" withstanding, there really isn't much to get excited about with this release. "...Going Bald" and "Lakeside Park" don't offer anything new and are actually somewhat regressive when juxtaposed to prior awesomeness. As for the epics themselves, "Necromancer's" fantasy-inspired lyrics and goofy voice-overs are redeemed by some excellent guitar work by Alex and the central instrumental section, but "Fountain of Lamneth" can't sustain its almost 20-minute length. Its movements don't flow together very well and its themes are difficult to grasp; however, it isn't without its instrumental merits, and Geddy does have a few beautiful vocal moments as well.

All in all, "Caress of Steel" remains one for the fans, and holds up to an occasional listen every now and again.

Songwriting: 2 Instrumental Performances: 3 Lyrics/Vocals: 2 Style/Emotion/Replay: 2

Review by Zitro
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars A commercial flop for Rush. Not only do I think the band were ready at that point to write extended passages, but I think that they didn't have good musical ideas overall: whatever they had were wasted on the two long songs here. The short songs range from mediocre to decent, there is a typical energetic rocker which fails to grab my attention, an ok pop song, and a kind of irritating hard rock tune that tries to be funny "I think I'm Going bald".

Why do the long songs fail as being good music? They are very poorly constructed, incoherent and some passages feel way too long. "The Necromancer" is the better one of those, starting with a dark slow section full of electric guitars, then having two sections which seem to have no musical connections and some unintentionally funny narration that hurts the song. "The Fountain of Lamneth" is the longest one, and the songwriting is awful. It starts with a bit of potential with a good hard rock riff, but then goes a drum solo and the singer randomly shouting lyrics and when music turns decent again, you have a very dull and overlong acoustic section and the rest is all hit and miss, making it hard to listen to it. Overall, it has its moments but is very inconsistent and ends up leaving me cold and unsatisfied. I can't believe how poor their songwriting skills were at this point and I'm glad they proved the world wrong with 2112, containing a classic hard rock epic of excellent musicianship and songwriting.

Recommended for hardcore Rush fans and completionists. There's no reason to get this album when you could buy their next set of albums, which are superior.

1. Bastille Day (D+)

2. I think I'm Going Bald (D-)

3. Lakeside Park (C-)

4. The Necromancer: (C)

5. The Fountain Of Lamneth: (D)

Review by obiter
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars There are great bits here. The classic anthem Bastille Day and the D&D Necromancer. My favourie is Lakeside Park.

The album is at time frustrating and this is exemplified by The Fountain of Lamneth: the side long epic. At times it's great, and then a drastic transition ends up a blind alley and you're left going Oouch that's gotta hurt!

The band is pushing its limits at the time and is suppose that is what prog is about. It just doesn't come off here with the majesty that later albums possess.

Review by b_olariu
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars Rush trying to do their future classic music, and the result is a good one but non essential. Still one of Rush albums that i listen with pleasure but when i descovered other albums from different bands from that period i realized that is not so fabulous album as i thought in my early discoveries, just a good one. Maybe nothing more to add, just if you want to listen to the early sound of Rush this is the album that you may purchase first. 3 stars and an underrated Rush album that still needs to be descovered, and maybe a classic of prog after all.
Review by 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.

Review by debrewguy
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
5 stars Probably the most uncommercial of all the Rush albums. To the point where the resulting tour was nicknamed the Down the Tubes tour. But along with Hemispheres & Grace Under Pressure, this is a fave of mine. And not just among Rush albums, but among my whole collection. My brother had picked the Archives 3 Lp set (Rush, FBN, & CoS). Our gang had already gotten into All the World's a Stage, and I was curious to see what else this band had in 'em. Side one starts off with a winner, an all-time Rush classic - Bastille Day. It gave off the same exhilarating bang that Anthem had on FBN. Big chords, riff after riff, it still gives me chills when I listen to it, and I still love playing it on guitar. I THink I'M Going Bald is rightly described as Rush's last real Rock n Roll song. In a way it brings back for one last time Lifeson's big Les Paul tone from their debut. Lakeside Park, though sounding thinner than on All the World's a Stage, was an early example of Lifeson's propensity for using unsual chordings, suspended, 12th fret ... why play the G here, if I can get this effect by playing it at the 7th fret. Necromancer, however, is where Rush goes prog big time. Yes, FBN had its' moments of progginess. But you could still argue that Rush was a hard rock / heavy metal band. Necromancer took them beyond just Zep & Blues riffing. Atmosphere, multi-part suite, narrative, instrumental swings from moody dark backing to overwhelming riffage. Now they were starting to put words & music working together. OF course, the second side (for those old enough to remember vinyl) is where Rush stake their first prog claim to glory. Having immersed themselves in bands like Genesis, Gentle Giant and other prog giants of the day, you can see Rush taking the first steps in establishing their own style. Changing tempos, abrupt chord changes, quiet to loud, back to quiet, riffs that sounded like the metal equivalent of Genesis's Watcher of the Skies, with the same arrangement matching the lyrics' message to the musical backing. As with many developing bands (another 70s relic, nurturing a new act until they hit their stride), Rush would learn to better edit themselves, concentrate on establishing the melody or riff beyond the 4 bar section. Indeed, 2112 is the result of this album's experimentation. So if you love 2112, CoS is a perfect match if you're looking for more.
Review by progrules
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars I believe this is one of the most special albums by Rush, mainly because of the two long ones. I come to those in a minute. The first three songs are nice, almost funny (especially I think I'm going bald) but they are not really rocking my boat. Then it's the turn to The Neckromancer. This song is the main reason why I think this album is special. I mean have you ever heard a song like this ? This is truelly unique: a very gloomy song a bout a medieval wizard that really makes you get the feeling you're in the middle ages. How do they do that ? It's amazing ! And that's not all. I sometimes make a list of the best guitar solos ever and I can say that the solo at the end of this song ends up always in the top three ! This is such a great performance by Alex Lifeson, he is one of the very best in the business. To conclude we have the final epic: The Fountain of Lamneth. A song that actually consists of six shorter parts. It's a good composition but personally I favour The Neckromancer as the best of this album.

That's why I can't go for the ultimate score. One song is not really enough but it's a very good album. 4 stars

Review by apps79
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars A very unique band in progressive rock history,RUSH were formed in Toronto,Canada in 1968.They begun as a classic hard rock band,as we meet them in their eponymous debut in 1974.Soon after original drummer John Rutsey would quit to be replaced by talented drummer/lyricist Neil Part.In 1975 the album ''Fly by night'' featured some slightly more complicated arrangements,but still their style can be characterized as LED ZEPPELLIN-influenced bluesy hard rock.Their third release ''Caress of steel'' was the big turn for RUSH.The album starts with three amazing mid-length tracks,featuring the well-known bluesy/hard rock of mid-70's RUSH...but it contained two epic tracks,clocking at over 12 and 19 min. respectively.These tracks contain some very interesting instrumental sections,a more complicated style of rock and lots of changing climates,based mainly on the great guitar work of Alex Lifeson and the familiar vocal lines of Geddy Lee.The turn of the sound of RUSH was a fact and ''Caress of steel'' might be the most important album in RUSH' history,as from this point on they would add tons of progressive elements in their music.A strongly recommended record!
Review by UMUR
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars "Caress of Steel" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Canadian progressive rock act Rush. The album was released through Mercury Records in September 1975, only 7 months after the release of "Fly By Night (1975)". "Caress of Steel" initially didn´t fare too well and sold less copies than "Fly By Night (1975)", and the tour supporting the album had low attendance. Rush considered calling it quits at this point (or at least feared that they would be forced to), but they soldiered on and subsequently found commercial and artistic success with their next album "2112 (1976)".

Although "Fly By Night (1975)" certainly wasn´t a stylistic consistent album, "Caress of Steel" is even more diverse, and not exactly loaded with radio friendly material either. The inclusion of "The Necromancer" and "The Fountain of Lamneth", which are both 10 minutes plus epics (the latter is just short of 20 minutes long) probably didn´t help gain the band more fans. Not that there weren´t progressive rock fans who enjoyed these types of tracks, but Rush was at this point still more known as a hard rock act rather than a progressive rock act, and their fans probably needed a bit more time to adjust to their new direction.

In addition to the two epics, "Caress of Steel" also features three "regular" length (3 to 5 minutes long) tracks in "Bastille Day", "I Think I'm Going Bald", and "Lakeside Park". The latter is not the most interesting Rush track, and while it´s not bad as such, it just seems to go nowhere and I´ll be a bit harsh and call it a filler track. "Bastille Day" on the other hand is a heavy energetic rocker with metal leanings, and "I Think I'm Going Bald" is a humorous hard rocking track with a charming rock´n´roll swagger. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is the only track on "Caress of Steel" which points backwards to their Led Zeppelin influenced early recordings. So stylistically "Caress of Steel" is a bit all over the place and therefore very much a transition album, where the arrow is pointing in a progressive rock direction rather than a hard rock direction, where the scale tipped the other way on "Fly By Night (1975)".

The musicianship is high class on all posts. Geddy Lee is a brilliant bassist and a skilled and distinct sounding vocalist too. Alex Lifeson´s guitar playing has improved too and his performance here is both convincing and diverse. Drummer Neil Peart puts on a strong performance on the album too. His fusion influenced playing style suits the band´s music perfectly. "Caress of Steel" is a well produced album too, featuring a warm, powerful, and organic sound. The production is handled by Rush and Terry Brown, just as it was on the predecessor.

So upon conclusion there are many positive things to say about "Caress of Steel", and although it´s not a perfect album in terms of featuring a consistent style and quality, it´s a bit of a shame it wasn´t received better by fans and media upon it´s initial release. But as mentioned above they probably just weren´t ready for Rush to be a progressive rock band yet, and had a hard time handling the transition the band were going through. To my ears the highlights of the album are "The Necromancer", "Bastille Day", and "I Think I'm Going Bald", while "Lakeside Park" and "The Fountain of Lamneth" are slightly less interesting, but a 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)

Review by Nightfly
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Things were changing in the Rush camp. After two albums of solid Heavy Rock, Rush were now starting to experiment more and venturing into their more Fantasy based Prog period. First signs of this could be seen on the previous Fly by Night album with By-Tor and the Snow Dog but on Caress of Steel they went all the way.

Fans on listening to the album for the first time would think nothing much had changed with opener Bastille Day which is a straightforward slice of Heavy Rock which would have fitted in nicely on the previous albums and very good it is too. I Think I'm Going Bald is a bit of fun but it's okay and Rocks along well enough. The more laid back Lakeside Park is a lovely track, lyrics of course by Neil Peart written about a place he used to work.

It's the final two tracks that mark the real change into Prog territory though. The Necromancer, at twelve minutes and The Fountain of Lamneth, which at nineteen minutes took up the whole of side two of the original vinyl version. In hindsight the band looked on this album as a bit of a failure due to these two pieces and it's true that this is far from Rush's best. However, they do have a certain charm and are very good in places.

The Necromancer is divided into three parts starting off quietly and underwhelmingly with Into the Darkness. The use of narration with a silly voice is a little naff but hey, this was the seventies. Things pick up a bit with Under the Shadow which is mainly instrumental and has a fine Guitar solo from Alex Lifeson and features some fluent playing from the entire band. The track finishes with Return of the Prince which is pleasantly melodic with a riff reminiscent of The Who's Baba O' Riley.

The Fountain of Lamneth is divided into six parts starting off acoustically on In the Valley before the band power in. Didacts and Narpets is only one minute long mainly dominated by a short Peart Drum solo which is followed by No One at the Bridge which is more pleasing with a haunting guitar refrain from Lifeson. We're back into acoustic territory with Panacea which is pleasant enough without being stunning which leads into Bacchus Plateau which is basically straightforward Heavy Rock. The Fountain closes the piece which revisits where the track started with In the Valley. Where the track could have been improved would have been to make the parts flow more seamlessly from one section to the next rather than just pausing for a second or so; though perhaps this is the way they wanted it.

Overall then, a good album showing Rush finding their Prog feet and an important stepping stone for what was to come next with 2112.

Review by LinusW
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
2 stars 2.5/5 to be honest

I find this album very hard to review. At the same time that I desperately want to play out my fanboy-ism for this album, it seems like highly unfair for all the readers at PA.

Fly by Night is much better than Caress of Steel is the first thought that pops up in my mind. Obviously, most of the previous reviewers disagree with that statement. Let me explain why they are wrong :).

Caress of Steel is where Rush made too much, too fast. I personally don't find neither the Necromancer nor The Fountain of Lamneth thoroughly enjoyable. Sure, they do fulfill the prog requirements, but I still don't think they are good prog. Both songs have some magnificent parts in them, with The Fountain of Lamneth being the best of the two in my opinion, but they fail in coherence. The connections between the different parts leave me feeling lost. It's like a collection of many parts cut out of many different songs, only loosely connected. And that's why I often find myself playing this album as background music, while studying or being involved with some other activity.

Bastille Day, I Think I'm Going Bald and Lakeside Park also feels strangely out of place alongside the epics. They're all fun rock songs (especially I Think I'm Going Bald!), but I'd want them on...perhaps their debut album? This isn't a good follow-up to Fly by Night, which has it's natural follow-up in the excellent 2112.

As stated earlier: too much, too fast and some misplaced good ol' rockin thrown in for good measure!

//Linus

Review by Queen By-Tor
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Almost... there....

A strange album for Rush, really. This album represents Rush moving into progressive boundaries, while still clinging onto their hard rock roots. This album is the start of their classic 'Swords and Shields' era of music, capitalized on in later albums, but this album is also quite experimental and often has some missteps. It's easy to see where 'By-Tor and the Snow Dog' would have evolved into this album and this album would eventually turn into '2112', and in that transition it's stuck. Considered a commercial flop by their record label (even if it sold the same as the last two albums) Rush was put on the chopping block, the tour for this album was even called 'The Down The Tubes Tour'. Luckily they still had one album to their contract and that's where it all turned around.

Three shorts and two longs... how do they stack up?

The album starts off with the heavy BASITLE DAY, which could very well have been taken from either of the two prior albums. A rocking riff and political lyrics make this one a good head-banger. Also housed on side one is the excellent LAKESIDE PARK, a whimsical rock song that encapsulates the younger days of the band spent in their hometown of Toronto. Unfortunately there's one more short song to be had, I THINK I'M GOING BALD. Rush is often accused of being too serious with their music, and this song proves why. A quirky song without much substance, I THINK I'M GOING BALD is one that's better skipped (ironically, 33 years later and none of the band are bald at all!). A couple good short songs and one oddball, Rush definitely still liked to rock.

Onto the longer tracks and this is where everything gets... complicated. A mix of great and meh, the two longer tracks show Rush entering the new territory that is the progressive epic. Where their first epic 'By-Tor and the Snow Dog' excelled was it's mixture of heavy metal and progressive elements to create something completely new (and in hindsight, it's own genre), the problem with the two epics here is their speed. How can one describe the speed of these songs? Schizophrenic would be a good word, with the songs jumping back and forth between heavy and humble without mixing both. THE NECROMANCER is a good track when the volume is cranked, as it can be a bit quiet at times. The narrator describing the journey of some men across the labyrinth of the twisted Necromancer who traps them. The valiant By-Tor also reprises his role here in an excellent case of Deux Ex Machina as he comes out of the shadows to slay the necromancer at the end of the song. (Whoo, go By-Tor!). Good playing by the band, unfortunately the song is a bit too slow in parts. THE FOUNTAIN OF LAMNETH suffers from the same things in places. Granted, this song is longer and likely the better of the two with some great heavy moments, but it too is too quiet and indecisive about it's direction. One particularly excellent part of the song is 'Didacts and Narpets' as Neil hammers out the drums and Geddy lets out a shrill 'Listen!!'... just in case you were falling asleep.

In the end, what does this album get...?

Good, but not essential is the definitive way to summarize whether one should buy the album or not. 3 stars it is. Good for Rush fans and fans of early Rush, but not really for the average Prog-goer. A couple of good experimental epics and some good short rock songs make for an interesting album, but Rush has so much better stuff still to come.

Review by TGM: Orb
PROG REVIEWER
5 stars Review 21, Caress Of Steel, Rush, 1975

StarStarStarStarStar My favourite Rush album, from the seven that I currently own, and likely to remain there. In good conscience, I can give it the full five stars. I can't really comment on the resemblance to Led Zeppelin, because I don't know Zep nearly as well as I should. What I can comment on is how the album affected me, and still affects me after quite a few listens. I was blown away from the first listen (I had only heard Snakes And Arrows previously), and still am. From the emotions of The Necromancer to the reminiscing of Lakeside Park to the rocking of Bastille Day, everything works for me. I can understand why some people would take issue with some of this album, but I love it anyway, and consider it perfect for me.

Bastille Day opens with a kicking bass riff, and Peart and Lifeson both come in neatly. The screaming, high vocals burst into life, carrying some enjoyable (if simple) lyrics from Peart. Great opener, with a very strong rhythm section, and I like the slightly softer instrumental break, with the occasional withdrawals of the other instruments to leave Lifeson alone. The concluding burst, however, is the highlight of the song, ascending with a great guitar-drums combination.

I Think I'm Going Bald is a great semi-sarcastic, riff-based (although it is varied, and done very neatly) song with a couple of solid short guitar solos from Lifeson. The lyrics are pretty decent, Lee's weird, not-quite-clear vocals work brilliantly, and the fade works very neatly, I think.

Lakeside Park is widely accepted as a Led Zep rip-off. I really don't mind. Nice subdued bass performance, a good example of Peart's softer percussion and I love the vocals and lyrics, with their nostalgic tone. The small escalation at the end to an almost-celestial guitar tap is perfectly done. Basically, a really good song, whether or not it's a rip-off.

Now we come to my joint-favourite (with Cygnus X-I) Rush song, The Necromancer. The division into three sections works pretty neatly, since while each section is a distinct entity, they flow very well and have a couple of constants that glue them together. Each of the musicians stands out perfectly, with Peart handling the transitions from fairly intense drumming to sparse drumming and vice versa very well. Alex Lifeson moves between soloing and rhythm neatly, and Geddy Lee provides his usual excellent bass-playing. The biggest criticism that I could give this one is the lyrics, which are unabashedly nerdy and inspired by Lord Of The Rings, even if I like them. Could have been worse... (*coughTheWhiteRiderbyCamelcough*)

Into The Darkness begins with a haunting atmospheric guitar, and develops slowly, with a hollow Lord Of The Rings inspired narrator, very sparing percussion from Peart and a developing bass part. The way it all comes together into a song, which retains all its elements and yet is a complete entity, is unforgettable and indescribable. Geddy Lee's entrance on the vocals is superb, and the strange guitar continues behind him, echoing the ideas in the vocals before turning into temperate solo that expresses the longing and mental breakdown of the travelers. Music as a form of expression. Post-perfect.

The second section (Under The Shadow) begins with a sort of swirling (presumably guitar) effect, that conveys some sort of distance and power, and then bursts out in with Peart's hard-hitting drumming and biting stabs of guitar and near-growly vocals before bursting into a heavy, rocking part with the first of two vicious solos from Lifeson. After a twisting, thick guitar effect, it moves onto the second part of the instrumental with a more pronounced bassline. Whereas the first part was travelling through a grey, soulless wood and succumbing to its destruction, this is a medieval dungeon of horrors and torture, and visions of terror and chaos. Another post-perfect. If the rest of the album was at the level of these two parts, it would never leave my CD player.

Out of this horror, the third section, The Return Of The Prince, comes with a gentle, uplifting guitar melody, bringing back the light and life to the Necromancer's dungeon. Peart contributes with a nice drum part, while Lee and Lifeson intertwine their bass and guitar. Uplifting, cheerful, potent and unassuming. Perfect as an expression of hope.

So, there you have it. Three emotions: sadness, fear and hope, three sections. A truly amazing song.

The Fountain Of Lamneth is not as strong as its predecessor, and there are admittedly some sections that people with a sense of cheese might look down upon. There are some repeats (verbatim) of the album's main parts (acousting opening echoed in the closer, The Fountain's theme and chorus are repeated a few times, and the other sections also haven't got obscene amounts of variation within them), however, no matter how hard I try, I can't bring myself to care. The main theme is an absolute killer, with a savage bass-drums combination, and the acoustic parts are very neat and back-up the lyrical themes. All the other themes work as intended, I think, even the Panacea section. The reason I love this song, though, is probably to be found in the ambitious lyrical exploration of the human condition (cheesy metaphors and all) and stunning, poetic lines ('My eyes have just been opened and they're open very wide/Images around me don't identify inside/Just one blur I recognise: the one that soothes and feeds/My way of life is easy and as simple are my needs'). I love this piece, though the criticisms of it are mostly fair.

The side-long suite begins with a gentle, hesitant, acoustic opening, accompanied by a soft vocals introducing the lyrical search and leading pretty neatly into the main, heavy Fountain riff with a drum battery from Peart and a tearing guitar part (accompanied by stunning, powerful lyrics [just my opinion, normal people may not like them]). Geddy Lee lays down a whirling bass part which hasn't grown old yet and provides his. Peart continues pretty neatly through this section of the song, having a semi-directed soft drumming style that reminds me of Bill Bruford's finest hour (Close To The Edge).

Didacts And Narpets is a weird section, beginning with a chaotic, hollow, rolling drum solo with shifting guitars and opposed vocals chiming in with an argument of sorts. The guitar returns and the whole group scream out 'LISTEN!'

The following section, under the melancholy title of Noone At The Bridge, complete with sailing metaphor, begins with a guitar part from Alex Lifeson that holds up almost the entire section, with Peart and Lee working around it very well. Peart is particularly stunning, and Lee does an impressive job holding up completely solo on vocals for a couple of moments, and giving life to the great 'SCREAM OUT DESPERATION, BUT NOONE CARES TO HEAR!' line (sorry for the capitals). At its end, Lifeson provides us with an interesting solo over a slightly morphing beat, and Peart fades the song out effectively with his percussion and some birdsong effect.

Panacea is perhaps the weakest section of the song, having more clichéd lyrics, even if I love them, and as an acoustic piece, it sounds poor and generic unless you pay attention to the subtleties, shimmering guitar (could be keyboards, I'm not sure) and throbbing bass, as well as Neil Peart's fairly nice drum additions at time.

Bacchus Plateau rocks in with a pretty standard guitar part, decent drumming and bass. The brief rhythm section solos are enjoyable, and Geddy Lee is perhaps taking a risk with his vocals, which sounds a little dubious if I try really hard not to like it. Lifeson's ending solo, while in keeping with the song, could probably afford to rock a little more. Nonetheless, the softness of this section is perfect as a lead up to the main theme driving in again.

A slight bulking up of the earlier Fountain theme slams in, with especially superb high vocals from Geddy Lee, and the guitar effect is very interesting. Alex Lifeson provides a solo (which feels more typical of him than the previous one) which works very neatly, and Peart's drumming is especially welcome. A minor escalation of the theme leads up to a reprise of the acoustics on the opening, continuing and rounding off the grand lyrical themes. A slow instrument hum concludes the song.

All in all, a much-loved song, with one of my favourite Peart performances (I'm not the greatest fan of his drumming elsewhere, but this is brilliant). The lyrics were really my thing, even if they might come off poorly with some listeners. Not a general epic masterpiece, but a masterpiece for me.

This is one of those albums that has a sort of personal resonance with me, which is fairly rare, and also not the most loved of Rush albums, but I feel that I can justify why I think it's so brilliant, and love it so much. What distinguishes this album, and 2112, from later Rush albums that I've heard, is that it is emotional, open and honest throughout, and conjures up images in a way that Moving Pictures never will. I can understand that this may not be the album for some people, but it's the album for me. Consequently, it gets the highest of ratings from me.

Rating: Five Stars

Favourite Track: The Necromancer (especially Into The Darkness)

Review by J-Man
PROG REVIEWER
5 stars The most underrated Rush album ever hands down. There is nothing about it I can criticize. Everything is perfect. The production, the musicianship, and the melodies are all perfect. While the last two tracks are the best, the 3 shorter tracks are incredible too.

The opening to the album, BASTILLE DAY, is an incredible Zeppelin- like song that has great singing by Geddy Lee.

That is followed by I THINK I'M GOING BALD, obviously about Neil Peart's hair situation. The lyrics are odd, but the music's still great.

LAKESIDE PARK is the last short song on the album, and is easily the best of the first three songs. I particulary like the drumming on this track, but Lifeson's guitars sound great here too.

THE NECROMANCER is arguably the best on the album. While it took me two or three times to love, it's great once you get there, and I look at it as a masterpeice.

THE FOUNTAIN OF LAMNETH is Rush first 20-minute epic. The acoustic opening contains Geddy Lee's best singing. I also love the solos by Lifeson.

Overall, this is just a superb album. Any prog, prog metal, or even hard rock fan will love this. Fans of Rush will love this, and this is a great place to start listening to Rush. A must own for anyone.

Review by The Quiet One
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars Caress of Steel: Rush fans reject it, Non Rush fans praise it

My third Rush purchase, after buying 2112 and A Farewell to Kings, Caress of Steel showed me an early version of 2112, a proto-type of it; similar structure on the songs format.

Caress of Steel showed Rush fans a change on direction, bringing an almost 20 minutes epic thus leaving the Zeppelin-influence pretty behind; with this album and the next one, Rush managed to move further to the Prog territory that the band would be known-of with later releases.

This album is often rejected by Rush fans due to the loose conection between the different parts of The Necromancer and The Fountain of Lamneth, both songs which showcase some of Rush's most creative ideas, however they didn't manage to make them as succesful as they would with 2112, hence why one became popular and the other not.

The Necromancer demonstrates a solid three part song, in which each part shows Rush's characteristics in making long songs. Part 1 shows a haunting and spacey Rush with a excellent climax, similar to that middle part from By-Tor and The Snow Dog from their previous; Part 2 shows Rush heavy signature, with powerful drumming, great melodic bass playing and some fiercful guitar solos; Finally Part 3 shows Rush's acoustic up-lifting side, with a quite melancholic melody in which will finish with a fantastic emotional guitar solo. The Necromancer is probably one of Rush's finest Prog songs in the creative point of view, while on the musicianship side they would later shine on epics like Cygnus X-1 or instrumentals like YYZ.

The Fountain of Lamneth has a bigger set of characteristic compared to The Necromancer, which will make it obvious, that all of these characteristics won't shine as good as in The Necromancer did. Yet, this one shows a bit more of virtuosity and complexity, which will be one of the basics for Heavy Prog, to be more specific, for Rush later epics. This song is the obvious route which Rush would take to make the famou heavy epic, 2112. Pittily at this stage Rush wasn't that capable of connecting seperate parts, and as a result many fans rate it low. I simply find it spectacular, despite the flaw of being a bit loose, even sometimes better than 2112, since 2112 has a obvious heavy-light-heavy-light structure, The Fountain of Lamneth varies more through gentler rock parts and more interesting passages than in 2112 overall.

The three songs left are typical Rush hard rock tunes in the likes of side two from 2112 and of Fly By Night, however oddly enough the ones in Caress of Steel seem to be the weakest of the bunch, thus making another flaw on the album.

4 stars: Overall one of Rush's most creative albums despite the stated flaws.

Review by Conor Fynes
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars 'Caress of Steel' - Rush (79/100)

For the longest time, I've counted Caress of Steel among my favourite albums of Rush. It's far from being their best or most inspired (take your pick from any of the five albums that followed this for that accolade), but I'll never let up thinking that this was Rush at their most daring and risky. Even with two solid albums and an already-distinctive sound under their belts, underwhelming sales made their future look pretty bleak. The answer to this problem, of course, was to write music that would attract mass appeal. "Working Man" was a great rock anthem, even songs like "Fly By Night" and "In the Mood" were evidence of radio potential. That Rush decided to work against intuition and pack their third album with prog rock bombast at a time where the genre was falling out of favour is kind of amazing. The two ambitious epics packed into Caress of Steel pull no punches; in the face of commercial extinction, Rush didn't flinch. They stayed true to themselves, and refused to compromise where they wanted to go with their music.

What's more amazing still, is that I'm writing this at a time where Rush stands as one of the most profoundly successful bands in history. Even if they've never sought to strike FM waves and get popular, it happened anyway. Caress of Steel marks the first album where it truly sounds like Rush are getting truly comfortable with themselves. Fly By Night experimented with prog (see: "By-Tor & the Snow Dog") but never surrendered itself to the possibility that the band's future might lie in that approach. Caress of Steel still has some of the pop-oriented rock numbers that defined the first pair of albums, but they're dwarfed in significance by "The Necromancer" and "The Fountain of Lamneth", both of which rank among my favourite early Rush tracks. For the first time in their career (though far from the last), they had crafted a record with no weak links. Even the least impressive offering here, undoubtedly "I Think I'm Going Bald", serves an important role alongside "Lakeside Park" as an upbeat poppy contrast to the harrowing prog rock later on.

Of the three shorter pieces here, there's little doubt that "Bastille Day" is the strongest. It may not have been the nigh-unbeatable opener that "Anthem" was, but the fusion of energetic rock with the aristocratic pomp of its bridge section is particularly clever. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is decidedly less iconic; I can see why the tongue-in-cheek rocker doesn't get discussed much, but it's enjoyable and to-the-point. While there isn't much more than that to be said about the token pop song "Lakeside Park", it does strike me as a really effective use of time. In three minutes, Rush manage to transport the listener to a specific time and place; I've never been to Lakeside Park (and haven't visited Toronto in several years) but I get a crisp mental image of the place through their lyrics. It's a pleasant song for summertime. If the rest of the album were just like that, it probably wouldn't leave much of an impression, but it would be the perfect thing to put on when I needed a pick-me-up.

When it comes to the epics, Rush weren't so experienced with longform composition at this point. Yeah, "The Necromancer" is leisurely, maybe a little self-involved. "The Fountain of Lamneth" is a greater part episodic than naturally cohesive. But both of them are amazing. They're both rare cases of music that provide a gateway into another reality. Rush's vision of high fantasy is Tolkien-inspired to the point of feeling like a cheap knock-off (in a sense, they paved the way for generations of power metal bands) but it doesn't matter. Regardless whether the content isn't original, Rush make you believe in it. The gloomy psychedelic distortions in "The Necromancer" paint a grim picture of a wasteland where nothing grows. "The Fountain of Lamneth" is even more successful in this way; the epic revolves around a young man's search for immortality. The suite not only conveys his physical journey, but his emotional arc as well. When we first meet the hero, he is restless and confident ("In the Valley"). By the reprise, he is world-weary and tired, discouraged with the realization that reality often fails expectation. The music and lyrics work together to create a mental image just as vivid as "Lakeside Park". From a point of technical structure, Rush didn't create the sense of a completely coherent start-to-finish epic until the year after with "2112" (which stands among the most perfect prog epics ever) but the rough edges here are easy to overlook. Rush are all-too eager to take the listener on a journey, and I'm all-too eager to oblige them.

On a personal note, "The Fountain of Lamneth" had a powerful significance to me in my late childhood. I was having a tough time adjusting to my own realization that my dreams seemed made to be broken. I wanted to escape, to find my way beyond the nagging circumstances of my situation and, speaking now in hindsight, have what at the time was hideously implausible. Like the hero of "The Fountain of Lamneth", I struggled with the dissonance between reality and expectation. However, his final consolation struck a heavy note with me. "Still... I am." Instead of finding what he set out for, his quest awarded him the gift of perspective and maturity, to be thankful for the life he has himself. Even if the string of masterpieces reaching from this to Signals in 1982 might make Caress of Steel look primitive in comparison to some of Rush's other work, the album will always hold a special place with me.

Review by Sinusoid
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars My opinion of CARESS OF STEEL has changed quite dramatically over the years. It went from an underrated slice of Rush to agreeing with the general consensus on this record. After testing out how prog rock worked in Rush under ''By-Tor'', Rush went full blown prog on CARESS OF STEEL in the hopes of scaling the heights that Genesis and Yes have done previously.

The bait of CARESS OF STEEL is the two major epics that take up the bulk of the album. Of the two, the sidelong monster ''Fountain of Lamneth'' is the weaker of the two. The piece sounds like it wants to be very Genesis, but is trying to back off at the last minute. The trouble is this backfires on the band anyway, mostly because the music is much mellower than what the band has tried. It's not that Rush had trouble writing softer material (they got better at it over time; hear ''Different Strings'' off PERMANENT WAVES), it's that ''Fountain of Lamneth'' is a tiring, exhausting listen (and for a second less than twenty minutes), and it doesn't help that the music sounds like it was rejected from Ken Burns's Civil War documentary series. ''Didacts and Narpets'' is the only saving grace of the epic for it being so goofy and out of place within context.

The other epic here is ''The Necromancer'', an epic with references to Lord of the Rings (cliché) as well as Rush's previous epic ''By-Tor and the Snow Dog''. The piece sounds much more like Rush as a hard rock/prog rock hybrid, yet ''The Necromancer'' is not a cohesive epic. It sounds like three unrelated pieces linked as one giant track very weakly; the announcing in the segues (whoever is doing it) is laughable, and it's very poor in trying to tie the music themes together.

Even Rush attempting their failsafe music (at this point), hard rock with prog spicing, doesn't convince simply because they sound like they're running out of ideas on what to do with the shorter tracks. ''Lakeside Park'' works the best here even if the chorus is forgettable, but the pangs of prog are strong here. I just got sick of ''Bastille Day'' (and the chorus is getting more dreadful each listen or thought there of) the same way I got sick of ''Passage to Bangkok''. As for the bald song, the humour would have worked better in KISS or Alice Cooper.

This album certainly has lost its lustre over the years. I can give credit to Rush for trying to go full throttle on the prog, but the music lacks the dynamics that their later works have exuded to the point where CARESS OF STEEL is merely a historical document.

Review by CCVP
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars What is wrong in admitting Caress of Steel as a fine Rush album?

Released in the same year as Fly by Night, Caress of Steel introduce a considerable change of pace in the band's music so far. Until this album, the band released albums with straightforward hard rock alone, but, as i said before, that starts to change here with the suites The Necromancer and The Fountain of Lamneth.

Those two songs incorporate many progressive rock elements, such as the subdivision of the song in chapters, having each a different central theme from the other, though they all are connected by the overall song theme. Also, both suites have a completely different mood from the three initial songs, considerably inspired by space rock.

Bastille Day, I think I'm going Bald and Lakeside Park sound more like the other songs from Rush's first two albums, but, quite frankly, they are not very special. This, allied to the fact that the rest of the album is not easily absorbed, may be the reason why Caress of Steel is so badly considered among Rush fans.

The highlights go to The Necromancer and The Fountain of Lamneth.

Review by Epignosis
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars By this point in their musical career, Rush was beginning to find their own unique voice. They were still clinging onto the blues-rock of the past, imitating many greats of the time, but it was pushing the envelope in several ways. One noticeable aspect of this album are the two lengthy tracks, a direction Rush would take for a few more amazing albums before contenting themselves to shorter fare indefinitely. Why this album is so maligned I do not know. Surely it is not as strong as what the band would do in the future, but for a fledgling Canadian trio, this is a step in best direction.

"Bastille Day" Heavy riffs with a solid low end and stupendous drumming from Neil Peart make up this excellent first track. Singing about a major event of the French revolution, Geddy Lee's voice shrieks and squeals, and Alex Lifeson's guitar is good and crunchy. The arrangement is a good one, particularly toward the end.

"I Think I'm Going Bald" A throwback to the blues-rock music Rush began with, this is a real weak point on this album. It tries to wax philosophical about aging, but comes across as goofy. Lee's vocals are at their worst here, screeching and sounding like a harpy as he does. Lifeson's lead guitar tone sounds just as bad.

"Lakeside Park" Here is a good standard rock song, nothing flashy and nothing ornate, but still solid. The acoustic guitar adds a much needed layer to what is otherwise very thin music. It's a more laidback track, simple in terms of composition, and so it's easy to follow and enjoy.

"The Necromancer" The opening narrative, spoken through a deepening effect, doesn't come across as silly as it might have. It does set the tone for a lengthy and Pink Floyd- like song. I can honestly hear David Gilmour and Roger Waters singing over this music (Animals and Dark Side of the Moon come to mind). In that respect, Lee's vocals seem unbecoming, but not terrible at all. After a second narrative bit, Lee shrieks over alternating stark emptiness and heavy blows from the band. The guitar solo erupts over one of Lee's most graceful bass lines ever- it is no doubt a highlight. A riff during the second half, especially with the subsequent soft clean guitar music, reminds me of "Heart of the Sunrise" by Yes. The acoustic music that follows is a victorious change from the heavier, darker music of before.

"The Fountain of Lamneth" Lifeson's gentle acoustic guitar with Lee's likewise soft-spoken singing begins this beautiful epic track. The main riff that comes next is one of the best parts of this work. Peart flies off the handle with a drum solo punctuated by strange vocals and guitar blasts. It's definitely one of Rush's stranger moments. The next bit that fades in is very similar to the "Nimrodel" introduction from Camel. Lee's vocals are at their most astringent, however. In the next part, Lifeson treats listeners to a pleasing classical guitar with electric guitar swells and Lee singing in a heartfelt way. After that, there's some heavier music (nothing particularly spectacular by this point but good nonetheless). Wonderfully, Rush returns to the main riff of the song, completely with the light, almost jazzy vocal section. The piecemeal song ends as it began, with gorgeous acoustic guitar, yet with one concluding swell.

Review by Bonnek
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Often discarded as a failure, I don't judge this album very far below the other early albums. The 20 minute song-cycle that made up side two of the original album is not in the same league as 2112, but still it has its fair share of interesting parts. Bastille Day is a very immediate and steady opening track, not of the roaring intensity of Anthem but still, fun enough. I never cared much for Lakeside Park or Going Bald, but immediately after, the high point of the album announces itself: "The Necromancer", a song that seemingly never made it into their live set or onto compilations but that I regard as one of their best of the early years.
Review by Rune2000
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
2 stars After two albums of relatively straightforward material Rush decided to follow their calling by expanding their composition into something different and although progress is generally a good thing it takes time to adjust and create masterpieces.

By this time the band had already mastered the 4 minute format with compositions like Bastille Day and I Think I'm Going Bald showing this clear improvement. The latter has received mixed reactions from the audience but as long as your mind is set at a straightforward rocker then this performance should definitely do the trick. Lakeside Park isn't really anything too spectacular for my tastes and the track usually passes by unnoticed without making me feel one way nor the other about it.

The band plays it really cool during the album's two longer performances and it's easy to assume that they are really competent in compiling this type of 10+ minute material. Unfortunately once the listener tries to break down the compositions into different sections it becomes clear that Rush is not yet there in the song writing department. I have really tried to enjoy the two longer tracks on the album but it's clear that the comparison to 2112 is non-existent and have it not been for that composition and other great 10+ minute pieces that the band had offered its audience over the years then I would most probably have given these two a bit more credit. The sound production and mixing definitely leave a lot to be desired of but these are far from the biggest flaws that this material can be blamed for. Although I give The Necromancer an advantage the composition takes a lot of time to take off, but once it does we actually get 3 exceptionally groovy minutes of music. It seemed that Rush just didn't know how to make the transition work to the next section since the music just fades and we get another narration. This might have worked if only the next part of the song was anything to write home about, which is really not the case. Towards the 7-minute mark we get another sloppy transition to the upbeat instrumental section that could have easily been worked into the previous part of the song's structure. This part incidentally reminds me a lot of the Yes track Heart of the Sunrise. The outro section almost makes me believe that I experienced something quite spectacular since it's a very deservingly nice melodic ending to a disjointed mess of a composition.

The Fountain Of Lamneth suffers from the same problems as The Necromancer but on top of that we also get almost double the track length which makes things feel tedious after about ten minutes. On a plus side, the main riff featured throughout the composition is quite memorable but it doesn't really justify me listening to this mainly acoustic performance just to get a few glimpses of it here and there.

No matter how I twist and turn my words this album will still remain a fans only release since Rush has both done better and more dynamic progressive rock classics towards the second half of the '70s. Caress Of Steel was definitely a step forward in the right direction that would rightfully payoff once the band finally achieved their breakthrough with the next release.

**** star songs: Bastille Day (4:37) I Think I'm Going Bald (3:38)

*** star songs: Lakeside Park (4:08) The Necromancer (12:29) The Fountain Of Lamneth (19:58)

Review by tarkus1980
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars And heeeere comes the artsiness. Oh sure, a third of the album is "normal" rock songs, but the rest is devoted to a couple of long, multi-part, atmospheric compositions of ... *ahem* ... varying quality. It's almost as if the band changed its mind in the middle of the recording sessions of what kind of band it wanted to be, and I can only imagine how confused the band's established fans were upon buying this. It doesn't help, either, that one of the decisions of Peart and company was to completely erase the strong production values of Fly by Night. The sound is very airy, almost of a demoish quality, and only the clever arrangements betray that this is, in fact, a finished product.

Even worse, the songwriting is clearly on a decline. Of the three regular songs that begin the album, only one of them meets the standard set by "Anthem" - the bitchin' opener "Bastille Day." Oh sure, I can complain that the song would be tons better if the instruments were less "dead" sounding, but I cannot deny the quality of that riff and that chorus. But the other two songs ... ergh. Well, ok, "Lakeside Park" is an alright soft number, though quite overrated - I think that the high esteem that it receives from many fans is a product of its placement between a couple of duds. There are lots of good songs that feature a wistful look back at one's childhood, but this isn't one of the better ones. It's still ten times better than "I Think I'm Going Bald," though, which sounds like it should have taken fifteen minutes to write (both lyrically and otherwise). Man, I'm not a Rush fan, but even I can't really believe that they'd run out of ideas this drastically so soon.

After "Lakeside Park," we enter "artsy" territory with "The Necromancer," a three part epic that introduces Rush The Mediocre Prog Band (whereas "I Think I'm Going Bald" showcased Rush The Mediocre Rock Band). The piece does have its good attributes, I'll give it that, like the menacing slide guitars at the beginning, or that part near the end where the band enters an intense jam, or that funny "happy" part near the end, but the rest of the piece doesn't please me at all. The lyrics are based on The Lord of the Rings (Frodo and Sam journeying towards Mordor in The Two Towers), but they end up sounding like generic gothic Dungeons and Dragons fantasy crap, and the music is often as dull as could possible be. There are some good solos, but the "dark" mood that envelopes the piece just sounds completely ridiculous, fake and stupid sounding to me, and that hurts things a lot.

Much to my surprise, the second half of the album isn't anywhere near as unenjoyable as "The Necromancer." This side is taken up by the 20-minute side-long "The Fountain of Lamneth," and while it has its problems, I generally enjoy the piece more than not. I can hear its weaknesses easily (and that's not even accounting for the lyrics); the structure is very reminiscient of Genesis' "Supper's Ready" (pleasant acoustic opening, introduction of a "main theme" that pops up at the end and in places in between, in this case), and it becomes insufferably boring at a few points, but still ... I mean, for starters, the "I am born ..." acoustic opening is extremely pretty. It even features some of Geddy's most timid and "vulnerable" singing, which should make it a relief for bashers of his voice. And dang it, I LOVE that guitar line that pops up every so often; it's fairly simple, but the 'epic' sound it produces is genuinely great. That line also gives birth to one of the greatest stretches of 70's Rush, with the great alternation between the "My eyes have just been opened" vocal melody and the "yet my eyes are drawn" chorus. The drum solo with the screaming is kinda stupid, as is the way it ends in that loud "Listen!," but the section into which it leads, "No One at the Bridge," is quite nice. This section has quite a great guitar line, even if it is highly derivative of classic Genesis; the band had successfully expanded its skill set from good Zeppelin imitations to good Genesis imitations. Later is another solid acoustic number in "Panacea," which is quite pretty (if not very memorable) and soothing, even if the lyrics are distractingly stupid. Of course, the "Bacchus Plateau" chunk could leave for all that I care, but the reprise of that great opening theme ("The Fountain") closes things in a beautiful fashion, leaving me with a good feeling about the piece as a whole. And so, while the piece has many flaws (aside from what's already mentioned, the flow is a bit of an issue at times), "The Fountain of Lamneth" is still a perfectly reasonable, acceptable, and even enjoyable side-long piece.

All in all, this will never be one of my favorite Rush albums, as the weaker features are just way too distracting for me to ignore. But, the stretches of beauty, rare as they sometimes seem, ultimately make the album at least passable and somewhat worth my while. Rush has done better, but they've also done worse.

Review by Flucktrot
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars The general theme regarding Caress is that this is the album where Rush finally start to sound like Rush. The operative word here is "start".

And that is being generous.

Going by my own subjective opinion, this may be a 3-star album. However, going by the rating anchors, I would have to say that this is mostly for collectors/fans only. I'm not a Rush fanboy, and by extension, I don't think I would buy this album again if given the chance. So...2-stars from me, for whatever that may or may not be worth.

First off, it would be hard to characterize the A side as "bad" music. Grating (particularly Geddy's delivery), uncreative, or simple, perhaps, but not bad. In fact, Bastille Day clearly rocks hard, and most of us can agree on that. In addition, the Necromancer has some very good jams and grooves, although it could have benefited greatly from some simple editing.

Lamneth is simply and completely forgettable to my ears. If this were 5-10 years earlier, or a debut album, I could give it some major slack (ala Sabbath's first shot), but this is 1975 and Rush's 3rd crack at this. They had plenty of good inspiration to draw from! More was clearly expected, and Lamneth failed to deliver. It's repetitive, simplistic, and just rather difficult for me to make it through.

If you can't get enough heavy prog, this album may sound downright awesome to you. If you like some variety and symphonic build-ups, then don't expect a whole lot.

It would be do or die for Rush after this, and clearly, they did, and then some. Just not yet.

Review by Warthur
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars Rush had abandoned their unbridled Led Zeppelin worship and plunged into uncharted prog metal waters on Fly By Night, so when the first song on Caress of Steel - Bastille Day - is yet another Zep tribute, it bodes ill for the rest of the album; the song is saved by just enough technical flair and an interesting shift from the verse to the chorus, but it still feels like one of their early Zep-influenced numbers with a pinch more progressive influence added.

Sure enough, Caress of Steel represents an awkward compromise between commercial rockin' out and progressive metal excess. Both aspects of the album are critically flawed;; the band don't really seem interested in the shorter songs, whilst the prog epics suffer from Rush's compositional chops not quite keeping pace with their ambition.

Of the shorter songs, Bastille Day is the Zep imitator as mentioned, I Think I'm Going Bald is an equally unoriginal and uninspired riff on Goin' Blind by Kiss, and Lakeside Park is entirely forgettable. As for the prog pieces, the Necromancer pads out its running time with an overlong narration at the beginning and takes a while to build up steam, though it's a fun journey as it meanders about between the narration sections. The Fountain of Lamneth, similarly, pads out its runtime with far too much filler and compares poorly to the sidelong epic on the next album, 2112, which it occasionally sounds like working sketches for.

Ultimately, Caress of Steel is what's called a "transitional" album, that being music reviewer code for an album which tries to go for two different sounds at once and fails to accomplish either of them. It's not flat-out bad - most of the songs have segments I enjoy, in fact, it's just that the connecting tissue between those elements isn't quite there yet. Probably worth a listen if you're a major Rush fan, but don't expect it to supplant 2112 or its successors in your collection any time soon.

Review by Matti
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars The third album shows RUSH starting to find their uniqueness as a power trio somewhere between hard rock (think of DEEP PURPLE without organ or other keyboards) and prog rock (they must have been listening to bands like Yes, Kansas and Genesis at the time - there's even a side-long multi-part epic). There were some hints of it all in Fly By Night, but the step forward is very visible between these two albums. Geddy Lee's singing still sounds too pushed at higher register but he can sing with serene emotion too, as this album finely demonstrates.

This album would be almost great if it was as good as the best parts, but it's quite uneven. 'Bastille Day' is a strong, if not very original hard rocking opener, but the next one is a total filler both for music and banal lyrics, 'I Think I'm Going Bald'. Also 'Lakeside Park' comes close being one with its repetitive structure, but I like its mood. 'The Necromancer' is a three - part and 12-minute epic with naive fantasy. What irritates me there is the mutated voice that sounds ridiculous.

The second side is RUSH's attempt to do a massive epic à la 'Supper's Ready' - and it succeeds quite well. It may not reach the highest pantheon of prog epics but it's clearly the best thing RUSH had done that far, and even if they were to do many better prog compositions, I appreciate this among them. There's a lot of dynamics as the epic keeps changing from edginess to delicacy. The fourth movement 'Panacea' is a beautiful acoustic ballad, and the epic ends with cathartic peace, coming to a full circle.

At this point RUSH used no keyboards at all, but Alex Lifeson does wonders with his guitars; the sound of this album is colourful and warm, somehow nicely aged and ageless at the same time. Someone said it's the most underrated RUSH album. I agree! 3½ stars.

Review by AtomicCrimsonRush
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars Listen!

The power trio find their way on "Caress of Steel", a genuine turning point for Rush. The band are heavy and proud of it channelling Led Zeppelin and Kiss in places but injecting massive dollops of prog into the mix. The prog comes in the form of the two epics that are rarely heard outside of this album. I heard this album again to review after a long break but I have just listened to two ordinary Rush 80s albums and in contrast this album is like a jolt in the arm. There are no synths and the production is not as processed, and it is all the better for it.

The lengthy tracks are fabulous prog classics and Rush hold nothing back in their compositions. This rehearsal for "2112" is killer rock from start to end. Lifeson's riffing is awesome and indispensable on tracks like the brilliant 'Bastille Day' and wonderful 'Lakeside Park'. 'I Think I'm Going Bald' is like Led Zeppelin but lots of fun in any case. However, it is with 'The Necromancer' that it really takes off into full blown prog territory.

'The Necromancer' features some incoherent ideas with a mystical narration and many time sig changes and weird lyrics driving the story. Lifeson's lead breaks are extraordinary, especially at 7:30 when he just unleashes a tirade of guitar licks. What a difference here in the 70s when I just heard his restrained jangly 80s work. Lifeson is a brilliant guitarist and he is on fire on this song. Terry Brown continues to narrate the tale of three weary travellers who meet up with a wizard like Necromancer who leads them into the shadowy darkness, casting a spell that holds them captive.

The track is divided into three distinct sections that flow together seamlessly. 'Into The Darkness' has a "Lord Of The Rings" style narration and after some inspired musicianship moves onto 'Under The Shadow'. Now the travellers enter a medieval dungeon concealing the terrors of the unknown. Then we move to the next section 'The Return Of The Prince' that has a gentler musical texture ending the epic with an uplifting happy ending where the travellers are freed from the clutches of the Necromancer by Prince By-Tor.

On side 2 the whole vinyl record is swallowed up with the monster epic 'The Fountain of Lamneth'. The music is adventurous moving from soft to hard hitting in sharp abstract bursts. Lifeson swaps acoustic guitars for metal distortion as the mood gets darker. The drum solo from Peart is a blistering performance, but one cannot underestimate the power of Lee's high soprano voice and he is definitely in full voice in these early years. There are 6 parts including 'In The Valley', 'Didacts And Narpets', 'No One At The Bridge', 'Panacea', 'Bacchus Plateau' and 'The Fountain'. One of the best Lifeson solos is found on 'No One At The Bridge'. It is a grandiose piece of music that has some nice musical passages and lyrics.

The lyrics speak of the human condition including "Images around me don't identify inside, Just one blur I recognise, the one that soothes and feeds, My way of life is easy and as simple as my needs". But I particularly like the section after Peart's drum solo and Lee just screams out "Listen!" Perhaps he is telling us to listen to this new Rush sound that would permeate all the albums to follow until the 80s. The next few albums to follow would be Rush at their greatest.

Overall "Caress of Steel" signifies the golden era of Rush. It was a beginning of greatness for the band and one cannot help but to admire the bombastic approach to rock the band had in these early years. The epics are well worth checking out but also 'Bastille Day' and 'Lakeside Park' are killer making this an excellent album to indulge in. It reminds me of "Hemispheres" in a way having only a few songs with some epics, but they are all good and so it is a successful epiphany for the band branching into uncharted waters. The trio are at their most inventive and work well together to produce some amazing prog rock on "Caress of Steel".

Review by crimson87
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars The third Rush album shows real progression and a valuable attempt at leaving their hard rock influences and addapting a more progressive sound. Hovever , as some reviewers have already stated , I don't think they were up to the challenge at this point of time. Both epics do not sound cohesive at all, as the band was still struggling to find their sound.

The shorter songs of the album are average Rush material and with the exception of Bastille Day being a concert favourite there is not much more to be mentioned about it . The three of them are simple 70's hard rock songs and while that's not bad per se , those 3 songs are pretty uninspired.

That being said, I cannot award this album more than two stars. Sorry guys!!

Review by VanVanVan
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars A perfect album? In a word, no. A flawed masterpiece? Not even that. And yet, Rush's 3rd album has always intrigued me in a way that not many Rush albums do. It's off kilter and certainly a little uneven, but I think that Rush manages to show flashes of brilliance that reach highs they would never again venture towards.

"Bastille Day" has all the makings of an instant classic (which indeed it has turned out to be); it's got a hard driving riff, great performances all around, and of course a healthy dose of historically based, intellectual lyrics delivered in the wailing tones that only Geddy Lee can deliver. It seems to me that Lee hadn't quite mastered his formidable voice yet here; there's still a bit of shrieking and über-wide vibrato that hasn't been quite polished off yet, but there's something to be said for such a raw delivery, and it certainly has its own charm.

"I Think I'm Going Bald" is fun but completely forgettable, which I think is basically all that needs to be said. "Lakeside Park," too, is nice enough, but contains some of the worst cheese ever penned by everyone's favorite Canadian power trio ("although it's just a memory, some memories last forever" ?ugh) and it certainly doesn't stand out to me as one of the better tracks in Rush's catalogue.

Why then, do I rate Caress of Steel so highly? Well, because I would argue that the final two tracks on the album are two of the most interesting Rush ever recorded. "The Necromancer" may be a bit disjointed as a track, but the playing throughout is superb, and the pacing overall is very nice. Alex Lifeson has an unfortunate tendency to be overlooked in the face of the two larger personalities of his bandmates, but it is clear from this track that from a musical perspective Lifeson is every bit the master that Peart or Lee is. As a matter of fact, I think that "The Necromancer" contains some of his very best playing. Lee's vocal performance here is probably the best on the album, too, and Neil Peart is, well, Neil Peart. What else can one really say?

"The Fountain of Lamneth" has to be one of the more forgotten songs in Rush's catalogue, especially with the similarly long "2112" so visible as Rush's flagship epic, but man oh man, is this a good one. It's got an opening that contains some of the gentlest, most tender vocals Geddy ever recorded, and every section is incredibly evocative and atmospheric, creating a feel that Rush would never capture again, even on "2112." It's even got a rare Peart drum solo, which lasts just long enough to be cool but doesn't overstay its welcome. Does it have the same stadium-pounding drive of "2112?" No. It's subtler, calmer, and it "rocks" far less, but I'll still take it over "2112" with a gun to my head.

The most impressive thing about these latter tracks, though, is that it never feels as if Rush's reach exceeded its grasp. Are there brief moments of inconsistency? Sure. Are there unfortunate spoken word passages? Yes. But these songs have a charm to them that is totally missing from the perfectly polished later releases from this excellent band, and I think there's something to be said for that.

In closing, then, Caress of Steel is far from a perfect album. It lacks the power and punch of 2112, and it lacks the through-and-through compositional prowess of "Farewell to Kings" or "Moving Pictures." That said, however, it's still one of my favorite Rush albums. Is it a masterpiece? No. But I will argue to the ends of the earth that it has a place among every progressive rock collection, and especially among the collections of anyone who calls him- or-herself a Rush fan.

4/5

Review by Finnforest
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars My favorite classic Rush album

Caress is an album which I ignored in my earlier years preferring the immediate gratification of later stuff. As I cycled back through the pre-Permanent Waves stuff again recently I realized how powerful Caress is. It's more fully realized than Fly by Night, just plain more interesting that 2112, and more emotional/less cerebral than Hemispheres. And it kicks ass. I can now understand why the band were so mystified when Caress bombed, if I made an album this good I'd be crushed as well to see it get panned. I do think it is the album that perhaps takes the longest to assimilate, I saw a fan write a forum quote that spoke to this: "You aren't given CoS. You earn CoS." Maybe.

What I love about the album is three-fold, the sound, the vibe, and the consistency. Regarding the sound Caress basks in this warm glow, very hard to describe but I find the feel of the drums and guitar in particular to be the most natural and pleasant they ever achieved. Geddy's voice is incredible here, heartfelt on the mellow stuff in Fountain while at the peak of his power on the crazy high stuff. Regarding the "vibe" and the fantasy themes one could call them a bit airy fairy I suppose, but I rather enjoy getting lost in these tales and the boys deliver it without apology, it's obvious to me they believe in the material. And it's damned consistent. You have the perfect opener in Bastille Day, their longtime concert favorite, followed by Bald which recalls the joy and fun of the debut, but both just slay me. Then you have a breather with Lakeside Park which is an odd Rush track, sentimental, somewhat out of place, but it works all the same. Last you have the double whammy of Necromancer and Fountain, 32 minutes of pure progressive hard rock beautifully balanced with serene acoustic sections of introspection. Sound effects, narration, blistering leads, cosmic banshee shrieks, Shire-like folk sections, and anthemic heavy overloads. What the hell is not to like here? I don't understand why it was panned at the time, nor do I understand low ratings now. While other Rush epics are more musically complex and rock harder, none have the same combination of mood, fantasy, and musically delivered thc contact-high as Caress. This is a nearly perfect musical experience that is sadly overlooked.

Oddly, despite ignoring the album for years myself it seems to appeal much more now than some of its chronological neighbors. The progression of musical themes and pure youthful energy are so invigorating. The ideas seem fresher than 2112 or Farewell To Kings, less forced than the mighty Hemispheres. No deductions for me, no weak spots, something I can't say with the others. This album for me is the true Rush early classic.

Review by siLLy puPPy
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
4 stars CARESS OF STEEL is the album by RUSH that I have put the most effort into listening to in order to appreciate more. Upon my first listening of their third album I was somewhat underwhelmed since my exposure to classic RUSH was well after these first albums were released so of course it's hard not to compare this to the series of masterpieces that would soon follow. Apparently others were underwhelmed as well explaining the lackluster sales when released and the range of opinions ever since. All this dedication and persistence has paid off for me. For a long time I would have rated this a 2 star album and I spent many years ignoring this release altogether but in the last couple of years I have decided to explore this album a lot more since I was inspired by the many differences in opinion that it has received.

The first thing everyone notices upon first listen is how different the two sides are. The first side is old RUSH with the Zeppelin-inspired hard rock tracks "Bastille Day," "I Think I'm Going Bald" and "Lakeside Park." These songs were always inferior for me when compared to the first album and the hard rock anthems on "Fly By Night." But after accepting them for what they were, my attitude changed towards them. The second side is RUSH's first major experiments with long epic progressive tracks in the forms of "The Necromancer" and "The Fountain Of Lamneth." These two tracks are very interesting in how you can hear snippets of future masterpieces in the making. There are chord progressions that remind of tracks on 2112. There are nylon classical pieces that remind of A FAREWELL TO KINGS, etc. These two sprawling works are not quite as good as the more refined classics on the next four albums but nonetheless they have really grown on me.

Although this album is not perfect and really a training ground for the albums that follow it is still a decent album in its own right that has taken me very many listens to appreciate as much as I do now. This will hardly ever trump any of the albums from 2112 to Moving Pictures in popularity but I simply can't imagine any RUSH fan's collection complete without this album that provides a glimpse into the evolution of their sound. For that reason alone I recommend this album but I have also grown to really enjoy all the songs on it. I would highly recommend to listen to this periodically as it has a quirkiness that tends to alienate initially but does reward after perseverance. I am not at all disappointed in taking the time to get to know the intricacies of this album. I have had a hard time deciding if this is a 3.5 star album or a 4 star album and even now it seems like it's somewhere in between, but this is RUSH and I love this band so i'm gonna go for the 4.

Review by TCat
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
5 stars So many reviewers are saying that Caress of Steel is so underrated. Others say it feels unfinished and unpolished. I agree with both. It is probably the least sold of all of their albums. The first time I had heard this one is when I bought the "Archives" 3 disc set which was all three of their first albums in one set. Out of the first three, this was my favorite. I enjoyed the debut album "Rush" even though it wasn't prog at all, I was disappointed in "Fly By Night" and I loved this one, especially "The Necromancer".

"The Necromancer" suite (the fourth track) is the one of the best Rush songs ever and should be considered one of their classics, but it is usually ignored. It clocks in at over 12 minutes and is the tightest that the band appears on this album. In my opinion, it is the reason to get your hands on this album. Amazingly hard in some places, especially the 2nd movement. That tempo shift in the middle of that movement was the loudest and most thrashing guitar solo that existed at the time. Even now it holds up to anything current. What an amazing song, and up to that point, their best attempt at hard, progressive rock to date. Outstanding.

Other than that, the first 3 tracks are shorter songs, the first 2 being great rockers and the 3rd is a more mellow song, not a lot of progressiveness here, but still good enough and somewhat similar to side 2 of "2112" (which was their breakout album and next in the discography). "Bastille Day" could be compared to anything on the debut album except a little more hard and slightly more progressive. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is possibly more like a radio hit along the lines of the song "Fly By Night". "Lakeside Park" is a reflective song and less interesting of the three.

The last track is another longer suite also centered around a theme/story. This one is probably the reason why people feel the album is unpolished and incomplete, because that is what I felt when first listening to the album. However, you can understand where the "2112" suite came from when listening to this because there are some similarities, even though it isn't as good. There are a lot of heavy and mellow passages. The drum solo that makes up the 2nd part of this suite is awesome, but short. Unfortunately, it still adds to the inconsistent feeling of the suite. I believe the main part and best part of this suite is in the 3rd part which has a great slow guitar solo. The fault in this particular suite that I think discounts the opinions of most people who listen to this album is the suite ends without any kind of explosive climax like most of their long pieces and the suite never returns back to the amazing sound of the 3rd part. The 4th part, "Panacea" however is a beautiful acoustic ballad, but unfortunately is the last highlight of the album and there are 2 more underwhelming parts to the suite that end the album. This is probably why most consider the album not on the same par as the other heavy masterworks that the band would produce subsequently. To make matters worse, on the Archive collection (which I owned on 8 track) the suite is presented out of order and intermixed with other tracks. I didn't even know it was a suite until I got the vinyl version.

Anyway, I love this album despite it's flaws and it remains one of my favorite Rush releases, mainly because of "The Necromancer". But there are enough other redeeming qualities that make it worthwhile in my opinion. I find it an excellent addition to my prog collection and will rate it at a strong 4 stars. The best is yet to come though.

Review by Necrotica
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Colaborator
4 stars I think most hardcore Rush fans are aware of Caress of Steel's infamous reputation at this point, but I'll give a small rundown of it for the uninitiated. Essentially, this is Rush's darkest hour commercially and critically; the tour to support the album was even called the "Down the Tubes" tour by the band themselves due to poor sales and concert attendance. As you'd imagine, the group must have thought the end was near and that they'd have to disband at their label's insistence. After all, they were completely unwilling to heed any advice about becoming more commercial and accessible, eventually paving the way for what would become the super-successful 2112 and its highly ambitious title epic. But for all we know about the latter record, is Caress of Steel really as bad as critics once proclaimed?

Hell no. Granted, I can actually see why they might not have taken to it at first; playing progressive rock in the 70s, while commercially sound for some bands, was also like painting a huge target on your chest for music critics. And one look at the Caress of Steel must have been very striking back then: five songs? Two epics, one of them 20 minutes? For comparison, the longest song they'd made up to that point was "By-Tor and the Snow Dog," at a mere eight-and-a-half minutes. It may not have helped either that the lyrics were starting to become more impenetrable and complex, especially on the side-two epic "Fountain of Lamneth." But the more you dig into this album, the more fascinating and ambitious it starts to become. I'm not going to say this was just too forward-thinking for the critics back then, but I am of the idea that Caress of Steel was the true beginning of what we would come to know as "classic Rush" for the rest of the 70s and early 80s.

The tracklist is very much a tale of two sides. That is to say, a merging of two styles: tracks 1-3 are more in a riff-heavy hard rock vein consisting of tighter, leaner arrangements. Tracks 4-5 are the lengthy epics that focus on weightier topics and consist of several different sections spliced together. With such a short tracklist, I suppose it would be smart to tackle both parts of the album separately and start with the shorter tunes. For starters, "Bastille Day" is one of the best openers Rush ever conjured up; the hard punk-ish riffs meld perfectly with the bombastic solos and varied drumming, while Neil Peart's lyrics are just as grand as the music itself. It's a wonderful mix of the heavy and the grandiose, a great way to usher in this new phase of Rush. Finally, Geddy Lee's shrill vocal style works really well with the aggression of the song and gives it even more personality.

The other two songs, however, serve as more of a farewell to Rush early Cream/Zeppelin-inspired stuff, consisting of more bluesy riffs and simplistic lyrics. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is Peart's tale about how it might feel to grow old and watch the world around you change, so at least it's a bit more deep than the title suggests. But at the same time, it's definitely the weakest song here; the simple rock riffs and lack of variety make it stick out like a sore thumb against the more nuanced material here. "Lakeside Park" is a nice little trip down memory lane with Peart giving us a glimpse into some of his childhood; the riffs are also a bit more varied here, combining distorted and clean guitar tones to great effect.

Then we reach the real reason this album tanked: the epics. Interestingly enough, this section of the record is where I can give the most pros and cons at the same time. So let's get the negative out of the way: first of all, you can tell the band were still trying to find their footing as far as lengthy arrangements go. Instead of the smooth transitions you hear in future epics like "Xanadu" and "Book II: Hemispheres," both of Caress of Steel's epics feature choppy transitions that usually involve awkward fade-outs and tonal inconsistencies. This is especially prevalent on "The Fountain of Lamneth," which really could have done with some more editing in the studio. And it's a shame, because the individual sections are fantastic (trust me, I'll get to this). On the positive side, however, "The Necromancer" - whose lyrics are entirely based on The Lord of the Rings - fares a bit more smoothly; the shifts between tremendous metal riffs and foreboding soft passages is incredibly effective, and the middle section might just be the beginning of progressive metal as we know it. Seriously, that main riff is every bit as heavy as Black Sabbath's doom riffs were at the time. And again, "Fountain of Lamneth" does feature incredible moments, especially in the more Genesis-inspired soft passages like "No One at the Bridge" and "Panacea" (check out the Steve Hackett influence in Alex Lifeson's guitar work here!). It's also nice to hear how "In the Valley" and "The Fountain" tie into each other to give thematic unity to the overall epic.

Caress of Steel occupies a weird place in Rush's discography. It could effectively be considered the real beginning of what we know as Rush's signature style, but it's also a transitional wave goodbye to the band's less sophisticated past. But just know: whatever crap you've heard over the years about this record, you'll likely find it better than what those people have said. It's flawed, but those flaws are part of what gives it its unique character. It's clearly a stepping stone for a young band, but one that showed a band already poised to take over the rock world? even if people didn't realize it quite yet.

Review by Modrigue
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars Rush' first attempts at epics

Not often cited by fans, "Caress of Steel" is the first RUSH album to feature a 20 minutes long epic and to clearly exposes the band's entrance in the progressive world, already well occupied by their British elders. Composed only a few months after the release of "Fly By Night", this third studio opus was a bit experimental and risky for the Canadians. Still based on catchy hard rock and slightly on early heavy metal, the songs become more complex by incorporating more and more rhythm changes, however the result is not well mastered yet.

One word about the cover art: for the first time, it was conceived by artist Hugh Syme. Since then, he designed the covers of all the band's albums. The line-up is not the only stable thing in RUSH's universe...

As you may guess, the French revolution is the theme of "Bastille Day", the "Caress of Steel" referring to the guillotine. As "Anthem" from the previous record, this track is a powerful and aggressive opener, with a fast riff quite devastating for the time. This song will become a concert favorite. "I Think I'm Going Bald" is a heavy rock'n'roll with some cool variations and sonorities, as a kind of AC/DC-meets-LED ZEPPELIN. Describing a place near Lake Ontario where Neil Peart used to go, "Lakeside Park" is a sweet romantic ballad with pretty acoustic guitar moments. Enjoyable. Inspired by Tolkien, the mini-epic "The Necromancer" offers various atmospheres. The beginning is a little floydian and resembles space rock, then turns into an oppressive ambiance. It also contains a heavy metal jam. Epic and not very common! The result is not extraordinary but remains pleasant.

Also based on heroic fantasy themes, the 20 minutes long suite "The Fountain Of Lamneth" was RUSH's most ambitious composition at the time. However, the overall lacks coherency, unity, and is still a bit immature. Starting with a soapy acoustic passage, it alternates cool riffing accelerations and soft pastoral pauses. This epic contains nice instrumental sections and even display glimpses of "2112" though, nonetheless the main problem here is that the flow is not mastered enough, resulting in abrupt transitions. After all, maybe "The Fountain Of Lamneth" was a necessary draft for the future heavy prog suites to come...

For sure, "Caress of Steel" is uneven and not well balanced, but contains good passages. If you enjoyed "Fly By Night", you'll enjoy this disc too. RUSH is just entering the progressive world at a time the Britishs has already vastly explored the genre. Therefore the album won't sell much and will cause the band to tour in bars, on the edge of bankruptcy.

So, is this the end for our Canadians? What new progressive musical ideas could they possibly offer in 1976, at a time punk was emerging?

Unless the musicians combine their punchy heavy / hard rock with the complexity of their rhythmical structures...

Review by jamesbaldwin
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Here I am finally grappling with Rush, the progenitors of Heavy Prog. Very considered by fans of progressive in America, little considered in Europe (in Italy, at least). But just for this, I take care of Rush: I listened to them very carefully, trying not to be influenced from the evaluations of european critics.

This is the third album by this canadian group. The first that tries an evolution into prog. The first song "Bastille Day" (4:36, vote 7,5) is a good example of hard rock, Black Sabbath debtor. The second track maybe is the worse of the Lp. Not a really bad song but... a confuse song that goes nowhere ("I think I'm Going Bald", 3:35, vote 6). The guitar riffs (Alex Lifeson) are the best sound, in my opinion, produced by the record. The players are all very skilled, but what lacks so far is the musical writing, the composition. The third song is the slowest, almost a ballad, and it is definitely lacking in music ("Lakeside Park, 4:07, vote 6,5). The voice (Geddy Lee) is coarse and I confess that makes me regret Robert Plant. So far the rating would be two stars.

Here comes "The Necromancer", twelve and a half minutes, divided in three movements. A short suite. Maybe this long piece could take higher the rating... but after a recitative, the music starts, with a certain inertia and a good guitar arpeggio. Then the song stops again, in fact it is hard to take off, but here comes an instrumental part heavy rock and roll, rather forced. Finally with the guitar solo the mini suite can melt, and then you can also hear the great work on bass and drums (Neil Peart). Then comes a piece at high speed (speed rock?), with guitar virtuosity and great repetition. The problem in my opinion with heavy metal are precisely the forced and repetitive steps. Then the third movement begins, with another recitative, and with an acoustical passage. This mini suite in the complex is rather blurry. Vote 7+.

Average side A: 6,81. Vote side A: 6,5.

Side B is entirely occupied by "The Fountain of Lamneth" (19:50), suite divided into six movements, which starts slowly with a piece of acoustic guitar, then comes a hard rock part, followed by a tour de force on the drums, which finally takes place, leaving room for a moment of silence. Another movement, another forced hard rock part, another silence. I dont understand suite with a break between a movement and another. Then comes an acoustic ballad, maybe the best piece on the entire album. Then a silent pause again, following by an electric ballad and then by a powerful hard rock. Acoustic tail. What do I think about the suite? Alternates some moments of high quality and few moments of low quality, on the whole does not take of. Vote suite and side B: 7,5

This Lp does not convince me, it did not succeed (in my opinion) despite the great effort and great performance of the three musicians. The quality of the musicians and their high ambitions also allow the album to be more than dignified. It has opened new paths to prog, and is therefore a forerunner of the albums to come, which are definitely better achieved, have a much clearer focus.

Medium quality side A and side B: 7 Vote album: 7. Rating: Two (and a half) Stars.

Review by Kempokid
COLLABORATOR Prog Metal Team
1 stars Despite being one to praise bands for being ambitious and trying something out, even if it doesn't quite work out, I still feel like there's a limit to how much credit I can give. To make things clearer, let's just say that I completely understand how this album was a flop both critically and commercially. After the slight leaning on prog found on certain songs in Fly By Night, Rush clearly thought that they could go so much further, creating an album in which 2 of the songs are 10 minutes or over, one of them almost 20. The issue with this is that the band seemed to be lacking ideas in the music department, with songs that while capturing more of the sound that Rush was to have, didn't change the fact that the songs sounded very uninspired all thoughout, the biggest offenders being the two epics, which both lack cohesion and sounded heavily padded.

The best song on the album is also the opening song, Bastille Day, and even it doesn't really match up to previous albums in terms of quality. It's a short, energetic song embracing a more metal tinged sound, but I personally find the riffs to be lackluster and everything to just sound kinda flat. The melody for the chorus is quite nice, and the solo is alright, but nothing here stands out to me, it's just an average song. I Think I'm Going Bald somehow manages to miss the one thing that has made Rush consistently great, even during weaker releases, incredible instrumentation, with the majority of the song sounding extremely bland, with awful lyrics and easily one of the most poorly executed solos that Alex Lifeson has performed within Rush's career, with nothing seeming to come together quite right at all, the mixing especially being off, with the guitar coming through really scratchily in places, further diminishing the enjoyment to be found here. Lakeside Park is also nothing particularly bad, although once again, I do find it to be quite unimpressive, defiitely being one of the weaker mid paced tracks Rush has put out, feeling very by the numbers in essentially every way, although Neil Peart does add some nice flair to aspects of the song. The worst part of the album is undoubtedly the final 2 songs however, and I'll talk about both of them interchangeably, as they both feel very similar to me, and both have the exact same problems. These songs both have some aspects os them which are great, such as the slow, atmospheric section of The Necromancer or the insane drum solo in Fountain Of Lamneth, but these are quickly replaced with either generic, or straight up bad sections that display next to nothing of any merit. This is especially present in the Fountain, as the back half of it is mostly comprised of slow passages that lack any sort of decent melody or beauty, being boring to a painful extent, especially when factoring just how long the song is. There's also the issue where even riffs that by all means should sound really great to me, just don't, the placement in the songs and the common lack of cohesion is what I say is to blame, with each song feeling like a variety of concepts and riffs loosely strung together, giving no moment any particular impact at all, no matter how good it could otherwise be. I just cannot enjoy anything to do with these in the slightest, and considering how much of the album they take up, it reflects the album extremely poorly.

While some people enjoy this album, and I cannot fault them for that, I personally find this album to be an absolute black hole of entertainment, and never has 44 minutes felt so long to me than when trying to actively listen to this album. The shorter songs lack the punch that their others tend to, and their more progressive compositions fall flat on their faces, easily being some of the most boring prog music I've heard. I'm very glad that Rush managed to bring out so many excellent albums past this point, but this album is one that I don't really plan on ever returning to.

Best tracks: Bastille Day

Weakest tracks: I think I'm Going Bald, The Necromancer, Fountain of Lamneth

Verdict: I genuinely cannot think of a single person that I would recommend this album to in good spirit, I find the best track on here to still be somewhat dull, and for almost the entire rest of it to be stuff that I honestly never want to hear again. To me, this is boring to a painful extent.

Review by Hector Enrique
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars "Caress of Steel" put Rush against the wall and made the band's continuity questionable, after its meager commercial repercussion and a promotional tour that went unnoticed.

Although the band maintained its influences related to classic rock, as with the warrior "Bastille Day" and its unbeatable riff, or the nostalgic "Lakeside Park", they also begin to sail in progressive waters with two songs that occupy most of "Caress of Steel": the hypnotic and fantastical "The Necromancer", the best achieved composition of the album, standing out clearly Lifeson's guitar solos that go through its three parts, and Geddy Lee's active bass; and "The Fountain of Lamneth", one of the longest songs in the band's discography. And this last song, in spite of its promising acoustic beginning and Neil Peart's fleeting and incisive drum solo, fails to coalesce in all its development as a fluid structure, and perhaps that is the main point that works against not only the song but the album as a whole and its relationship with the record label.

Becoming a cult album over the years, in part perhaps because of the guilty indifference it suffered at its release, and in part perhaps also because of that mysterious character of lost gem and, separating the wheat from the chaff, "Caress of Steel" has above all the merit of having been the fundamental basis for the release of "2112", the band's first international mega-hit. And the end of the discussion with their record company...

3 stars

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3 stars Caress of Steel is a lovable but flawed album, and a bit of an outlier in the Rush catalog. The music here is very similar to Fly By Night, prog-related hard rock with the signature elements of early Rush, including Zeppelin-esque blues riffs, Geddy wailing like a mad-man, giant tom-fills, s ... (read more)

Report this review (#1167023) | Posted by TwoCents | Tuesday, April 29, 2014 | Review Permanlink

4 stars I feel like this album is somewhat overlooked in the Rush pantheon, despite its importance to the band's development. After all, this is the album, "By-Tor" aside, where they embrace prog rock and also the last Rush album that would not feature keyboards until "Vapor Trails." However, the album i ... (read more)

Report this review (#1130991) | Posted by hughes | Wednesday, February 12, 2014 | Review Permanlink

5 stars It was really hard for me to enjoy this album and several attempts took place before I was ready to say:well this is very solid record. The most exciting thing about the album is that it contains the elements that were later used on more notable Rush albums. There's a bit of 2112, A Farewell To K ... (read more)

Report this review (#1106319) | Posted by LSDisease | Saturday, January 4, 2014 | Review Permanlink

3 stars 3.5 Stars In my opinion, this is the first true progressive album by Rush. Though Fly By Night had some progressive elements in the song "By-Tor and The Snow Dog" the band never really solidified itself into the genre until this album was released. Side One Bastille Day is an awesome son ... (read more)

Report this review (#1008952) | Posted by Meegan | Tuesday, July 30, 2013 | Review Permanlink

5 stars In my opinion, "Caress Of Steel" is one of the most underrated albums in all of progressive rock. The album begins with the familiar sound of "Bastille Day", a great heavy prog riff that makes me smile every time I hear it. It contains real power in Alex's guitar, Geddy's raw voice, and Neil's p ... (read more)

Report this review (#984562) | Posted by Xonty | Sunday, June 23, 2013 | Review Permanlink

4 stars I am tempted to call this album a masterpiece based on the fact that, for me anyway, it holds some of the strongest moments Rush ever put on tape, which is saying a lot. Anyway, it is kind of inconsistent depending on how one chooses to view it. There are short tracks and long tracks which have ... (read more)

Report this review (#965304) | Posted by Josef_K | Sunday, May 26, 2013 | Review Permanlink

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