A FAREWELL TO KINGS

Let me begin my review saying that this album was my way into Rush. It was the door that allowed me in to know this fantastic canadian band. However, at first, i was very disappointed, because i heard that this band was amazing, that it rocked, etc, but the second i heard Geddy Lee saying When they turn the pages of history i was immediately turned off. I could not stand his vocals and, to be frank, i still don't like his vocals completely but i learned to not hate them and even like them sometimes, because their music is really good and his vocals are just a little part of the songs. Maybe that is why i like this era of Rush better than the others (the epics era), because in this era Geddy Lee don't sing too much, and also because this is their most progressive era. However, like it or not, Geddy Lee's vocals are the pure representation of Rush, pretty much like Jon Anderson's vocals are the representation of Yes: the band would not work out properly with another vocals since Geddy's fit their stile perfectly.

Anyway, despite the vocals problem, this is my favorite Rush album and that is because this album is pretty constant. Unlike Caress of Steel, 2112 and Hemispheres, both sides of the album are very good instead of, in the case of the albums listed before, having one terrific side and a just decent another side. In th CD era this is not as clear as it was in the LP era, but it still pretty obvious that in those 3 albums one part is definitely better than the other (in the Caress case is the end and in both 2112 and Hemispheres cases is the beginning). Bottom line: this album is the most balanced album of the progressive / epic Rush era.

About the songs, musicianship and other features there are some thing i would like to state:

Well, definitely the instrument that stand out the most here is the bass. Maybe the producer just increased the volume of Geddy Lee's bass and reduced the volume of Alex Lifeson's guitar but the fact is that the bass is clearly with some kind of improvement over both the guitars and the drums. That, however, set the tone for the album, creating a very interesting atmosphere.

This album is also quite technical, specially the drum parts, but not too much if compared to the rest of traditional prog rock: it fall right into the right amount of technicality that is the characteristic of progressive rock, but it still quite technical.

Overall, the music is a very good mixture of hard rock and progressive rock. Well, it is actually more hard rock than progressive rock, but it is still a good blend between these genres of rock and probably was rush the first band to blend those two together for the first time, with great results and being very influential because of that.

Grade and final thoughts:

For being a balanced and constant album, and because it has terrific songs, i think that A Farewell to Kings deserves the masterpiece grade. Besides, this album is very influential: many parts of the Dream Theater album Falling Into Infinity are clearly influenced by this album (i don't know if its a coincidence, but the best parts of Falling Into Infinity are influenced by this album).

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