POWER WINDOWS

Rush explore the various manifestations of power on their excellent mid-80s album 'Power Windows', a record that continues the band's ingenious synth-driven amalgamation of prog, pop and AOR, taking in many respects the best aspects of their previous couple of albums and delivering a more ambitious, consistent and lush work. 'Power Windows' remains quite an understudy in this catalogue, which is a shame given that this is a tight record with fabulous songwriting (you get some of the most convincing and moving 80s Rush material, definitely on par with the music on 'Moving Pictures' and 'Signals'), really good singing from Geddy Lee (I would argue among his best recordings for the band), and a very quirky, inventive and powerful use of synths, achieving a sonic balance that overshadows that of the few preceding albums.

'Power Windows' is Rush displaying everything they had learned throughout the decade and synthesizing their sound in a very melodic and accessible format - there are no weak entries on here and the all the songs maintain the same level of precision and intrigue. Once again trying out to work with a new producer, 'Power Windows' is definitely a success and an underrated piece of work that produced great tracks like the popular opener 'The Big Money', the gorgeous 'Manhattan Project', or the uplifting 'Marathon', not forgetting excellent songs like 'Middletown Dreams', one of the songs with the best production on a Rush LP and, of course, the really strong 'Mystic Rhythms'. Just great playing and writing overall, this album is a solid step up from the less focused 'Grace Under Pressure'.

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