A FAREWELL TO KINGS

Actually this is one of my earlier prog albums. I got to know it somewhere in the mid eighties and loved it for a long time. I always considered it inferior to its successor Hemispheres but of course it's a great album. I have to add to the facts that in those days I was more easily overwhelmed by a prog album than nowadays. This is not strange; besides the fact I was younger then and probably more easily overwhelmed it was also an era with far less progalbums in history than now, almost a quarter of a century later.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that unfortunately nowadays A Farewell to Kings is not one of my favourites anymore. It has faded from me and in fact already did that more than 10 years ago. Sometimes I tried to reanimate my love for it but to no avail. In earlier days it was especially Xanadu that was my favourite track (as with many of the Rush fans) but unlike many Rush fans I don't care to much about the shorter songs. Madrigal is one of the few ballads Rush has ever done so that's at least an interesting one. But what's so mindblowing about the other 4 I wonder really. The title track is ok for me but no more than that. Cygnus X-1 is interesting but in the end another example of faded glory.

Initially I wanted to give it 4 stars for old times sake and out of respect but I have to be honest to myself and cannot go further than 3 stars (3,25).