CARESS OF STEEL

Their debut album and Fly By Night set them in stone as some heavy rockers, but Caress of Steel furthers the Rush sound by adding some prog to the mix. In this way the album is very much a transition album for the band. But like many transition albums, there is often a lacking in focused songwriting, as the band tries to conform to their new identity, and this is no different. Still, this is much stronger musically than their previous two efforts.

'Bastille Day' and 'I Think I'm Going Bald' are straight up rockers and shows Rush hasn't veered too far away from their hard rock roots established in the first two albums. While there's nothing really progressive about either, they do contain some of the band's greatest riffs and melodies.

'Lakeside Park' is a nice tune with a killer riff and a strong rhythm. This song clearly means something to the band, and they do a great job of conveying this musically with a strong nostalgic undertone.

The real stars of this album are 'The Necromancer' and 'Fountain of Lamneth,' which is Rush's first attempt at longer songs. Both of these songs are undoubtedly prog, and definitely have their moments. 'The Necromancer' has some amazing guitar work from Alex, including a very dazzling solo at the end. 'The Fountain of Lamneth' has a constant stream of great riffs and melodies in its 20-minutes of length. But, both these tracks exemplify the troubles Rush had in crossing over from simple hard rock, to prog. The songs are sloppy, and don't flow very well. The Fountain especially has some great sections, but they don't feel connected to each other and the song feels more like a suite if anything. However, even with these flaws, these two songs are still the highlight of the album.

Overall, I don't think Caress of Steel deserves all the criticism it gets, especially by the band, but I understand why it does. There are many good moments, but most of them are simply structured poorly. Fortunately, Rush would rectify this and put out some more consistent prog rock epics in future albums.

6/10