A FAREWELL TO KINGS

The opening minute of this albums gives me goose-bumps. The hair stands upright on my back. This is seriously good, classic stuff. The title track is a true classic Rush composition........ but still only a foreplay to one of their best songs ever; Xanadu.

I have no idea how many neighbours I have scared during the last 20 years with my air-guitar play and seriously maniac behaviour during Xanadu. No, I am not going to film myself and put it on Youtube. No. No. No. No. But it is a seriously stirring track. Alex guitars and the build up is just incredible. In fact, just as incredible today as it was when I first heard it 20 years ago. Timeless. Classic. One of Rush best moments.

If I am not mistaken, Closer To The Heart is Rush biggest ever hit. I am starting to get bored of this song (a view shared by Rush themselves). But it is still a majestic two and a half minutes. I happens to like it. The opening seconds of Cinderella Man makes me sit up and listen. The rest of the song is too easy listening to me and not a great Rush song.

Madrigal on the other hand is a true cracker. This is one of Rush lesser known tracks though. A very sweet and tender song with a truly wonderful tune. It is one of the tracks which makes it essential to get every Rush album because there is a lot of excellent songs here not included on the live albums and the best of compilations albums. Rush has a lot of socalled hidden gems.

Cygnus X-1 is the second of the three opuses which starts at the previous album 2112 and continues here before it finish at the next album Hemispheres. It is a epic song which slowly builds up to a crescendo and some nifty guitars, bass and drums. It is a great epic opus. It would be fun to rip these three opuses from their records and play them as one opus, back to back. Maybe that's an idea for Rush. I like this opus and thumbs up from me.

This is one of Rush best ever albums. I regard 2112, this album and Hemispheres as one entity. You need all three of them to make sense of the music. I love this album.

4.75 stars