Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Rush - Rush CD (album) cover

RUSH

Rush

 

Heavy Prog

2.95 | 1234 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Guillermo
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Another album which I listened to a very long time ago, in mid 1983. By that time I was in my last year in Prep School. The amateur-semi-professional band on which I was playing the drums then , a "Power Trio" with a cousin and one of my brothers, was then put temporary "out of action" due to school obligations and the fact that my cousin was tired of playing the bass and wanted to buy a guitar and become another guitarist in the band (in 1984 a bassist was found and our band became a quartet which mainly played original songs!). So, by that time my brother met two musicians which were more or less of my age and also were in the same school I was studying (to be honest, at that time I wasn`t a dedicated student, but I managed to finish my Prep School studies in the three years official period!). These two musicians (who also are brothers) were great fans of RUSH and they had all the albums of the band. My brother, five years older than me, went to play with professional bands which played covers in bars, for a time, and I went to "Jam" with these two teenager musicians for several months with the original aim to form a band which could play gigs, but it never came a reality (most of the time was spent on parties or in talking about some "philosophical and existential themes", lke many teenagers do!). The only RUSH album which I have listened until then was "Permanent Waves" which my cousin had in his LP collection. These musicians some months later found another (very good, by the way) drummer and called their band "Rasbora", a name taken from a kind of fish, I think. They composed their own songs, with lyrics written and sung in English (both were English language teachers) but their music was very similar to RUSH`s music, so among friends they were called Rushbora as a joke! (They weren`t very happy with that joke, but they weren`t very angry instead!). So, with these RUSH`s fans I had the chance to borrow from them and listen to several RUSH`s albums. This album was one of them.

After this brief autobiographical note ("Who cares?" "Is he really a "Prog Reviewer"?"), now I`m going to write a brief review about this album.

There was and maybe still is some people who criticizes a lot the early albums recorded by RUSH. Some people consider them as an imitation of the Heavy Metal style which bands like LED ZEPPELIN had in those days. I think that the comparison with LED ZEPPELIN is very apparent, but RUSH still had some originalty in their music, which since their fist album also had some Prog Rock influences. Geddy Lee`s vocals were not very liked by many people, me included, but with the passing of time this band developed their own style and became an even more original band. The thing that makes this album belong more to the Heavy Metal style was that their then drummer, John Rutsey, as a more Heavy metal oriented drummer than Neil Peart, who, in my opinion, still was heavy drummer, but his ifnluence as a more oriented Prog Rock drummer was very important, and his lyrics and conceptual ideas for their albums became even more important with the passing of time. So, in this first album, the band was more a Heavy Metal band very similar to other bands of that time.

The songs of this album are good, but some of them sounded even better when they were included in their 1976 live album with Peart called "All the World`s a Stage". There, these songs became Heavier and more Prog-influenced, particularly "Finding My Way", "What You're Doing" and "Working Man". Rutsey was also a good drummer, but like other bands, RUSH had to find another musician who complemented their style very well and to develop it more. With Peart, RUSH defined their identity better and became a better band, in my opinion.

Guillermo | 3/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this RUSH review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.