MOVING PICTURES

Ahh, yes, this was the album that got me seriously listening to the loveable Canuckleheads known as Rush. Every aspect of this album is perfect, and critics be damned for calling them pretentious, less discriminating fans can blow me for calling them humorless and boring.

Terry Brown's production was sterling for the time, every instrument laid out nice and clean for all to hear, yet rich, full, and possessed of the depth that analog recording can give best. And it shows that Rush had really hit their stride as musicians and songwriters, streamlining their approach from the sometimes unwieldy epics of their beginnings to more accessible songs that still maintained their superior musicianship. While the songs here are more radio-friendly, the playing still is as good as it gets in rock or metal without becoming self-indulgent masturbation. The songs are perfect in their construction too, always catchy, always involving, always mesmerizing.

Neil Peart's brilliant wordsmithing and death defying drum work are top notch as always, and it bears mentioning that Alex Lifeson is a criminally underrated guitarist too. He shreds, crunches, and lays down all manner of textures all over this album, complimenting always the other players while he's at it. Geddy Lee is one of the all time rock bass gods, and it always amazes me how me manages to pull off sometimes doing three things at once onstage (singing, bass guitar or bass pedals, and keyboards!). His tone is thick, gritty and growling, a constant punchy undercurrent beneath the guitars and riffing right along with delicious complexity--no droning pedal tones for Mr. Lee, never. Those eldritch wails of his are unique, to say the least, too. "Moving Pictures" delivers the goods and how.

My favorite songs on here...well, OK, I do like "Tom Sawyer", great album opener, but I really dig "The Camera Eye" for its relentless driving feel and its slow buildup to that uptempo verse. I also really like "Witch Hunt" for its eerie intro and timely lyrics that remain true today, and chalk up another brilliant instrumental victory for "YYZ"--that main riff after the intro is bloody impossible! "Limelight" is a great song with intelligent (of course) lyrics about fame and its price, and the drumming is superhuman from start to finish. And "Red Barchetta" really shines too. Aw, hell, I love the whole album, but those are my personal picks, the best of a beautiful lot.

They grew steadily more ambient and textural, not to mention more accessible after this album, during the 80s, but I'm glad that they seem to have gone back more to the sound they had on albums like this in their current direction. And can it be ever said that Rush have ever released a crappy album? I think not, myself. "Moving Pictures" is a flawless meisterwerk, a product of a band confident and assured in and of their writing and playing.

album rating: 10/10 points = 100 % on MPV scale = 5/5 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