FLY BY NIGHT

Rush's second release, Fly by Night, is classic 70's Hard Rock; strong riffs, powerful solos, unstoppable drumming, loud bass and energetic vocals. Yeah that's it, pretty much like their debut was, however on this album Rush goes a bit further on reaching their own sound, unlike their debut which clearly had Led Zeppelin influences pretty much everywhere.

This album reminds me more of the Welsh power trio band, Budgie, they were doing a very similar style of Hard Rock, besides both being ''power trio's'', they had high-pitched vocalist and explored some new grounds for them, in the case of this album the 9 minute mini-suite By-Tor and The Snow Dog: raging drumming and great guitar potential, plus a splendid soft instrumental section which they would later develop once again in the following album with even greater success, The Necromancer.

The rest of the album features mostly straight-forward Hard Rock songs with great potential and in the heights from those featured in Caress of Steel and 2112. These are Fly By Night, Anthem, Best I Can, In the End and Beneath Between & Behind. All strong in riffs like I stated in the begining, and definitely rock hard.

The album then features two acoustic-oriented songs, Rivendell and Making Memories. The former being a very sweet acoustic tune giving the album a more dynamic feel, while the latter is more up-beat with a simple though very entertaining acoustic guitar and well Geddy's voice can't get catchier than this.

Very strong second album, despite not featuring the complexity nor uniqueness of their later more acclaimed albums. I find this to be in the heights of early Ac/Dc or Blue Oyster Cult, naming two more acclaimed hard rock bands of the time.

3.5 stars, highly recomnded for those Hard Rock fans from the 70's. However, if you're looking for the Prog, check out 2112 and A Farewell to Kings first.