GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

Grace Under Pressure is the tenth studio album from Canadian progressive rock pride Rush. Rush made a big change to their sound on the last album called Signals. They started to incorporate synths to their sound in an excessive way they hadn´t done before and thereby entering the eighties. Permanent Waves from 1980 and Moving Pictures from 1981 still belong to the seventies era Rush albums soundwise IMO. I wasn´t too impressed with Signals but even though Grace under Pressure follow the same eighties synth heavy formula as Signals it´s a much better album IMO.

There are some excellent tracks on Grace Under Pressure and the album starts really well with Distant early warning, Afterimage and Red Sector A which are by far my favorites on Grace under Pressure ( and some of my alltime favorite Rush tracks). The quality drops a bit with The enemy within (Part I of Fear) which has an awful ska/ reggae off-beat rythm. Not my favorite here. The Body Electric gets back on the right track. Great song that one. The three last tracks Kid Gloves, Red Lenses and Between the Wheels are only average Rush songs and I´m afraid that it leaves a kind of divided impression of Grace Under Pressure.

The musicianship is outstanding. As a guitarist myself I´ve always been very inspired by Alex Lifeson´s playing on Grace Under Pressure. I love his grand sound. Neil Peart´s drumming is sharp and precise. One of his best performances IMO. Compared to his weak vocal performance on Signals I really enjoy Geddy Lee´s passionate singing on Grace under Pressure and his bass playing is as always intriguing and powerful. The synths are very dominant on Grace Under Pressure and it would be wrong to call them tasteful, but provided that you have a stomach for eighties keyboard sounds they sound pretty good. I think they fit some songs better than others.

The production is excellent. Much, much better than the way too bass deep sound on Signals. Everything sounds crisp and clean on Grace Under Pressure.

I really enjoy Grace Under Pressure and I would love to give it 4 stars but as I only feel that half of the songs are really excellent I´ll give it a BIG 3 star rating. Rush simply made too many fillers throughout their career IMO. But when they shine they shine like no one else. Rush has always been a unique band with a unique sound and that´s certainly also the case on Grace Under Pressure.