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Vapor Trails Rush |
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Rush are: Tracklisting: 1. One Little Victory In 1997, the drummer's 19-year-old daughter died in a car accident. The following year, his wife Jackie passed away from cancer. At that point, Rush had just released their third multi-disc live album, Different Stages, and the band took an extended hiatus to allow Peart time to heal. It's been almost five years since Rush released their last album 'Test For Echo', but on a cold Monday morning in January 2001, Geddy, Alex and Neil gathered in a small studio in Toronto to start work again. At that point they wondered whether they would be able to put together enough songs that they liked to fill a new album. Per their usual pattern, Geddy and Alex started working together on musical ideas in the studio's control room, while Neil retreated into another little room with pen, paper, and computer to start trying to assemble lyrics. This time around Rush laid out no parameters, no goals, no limitations, only that they would take a relaxed, civilized approach to the project. No hurry, no pressure, no marathon stints in the studio (at first anyway); they would simply keep working, day after day, trying to strike sparks from each other and feed the slow-burning fire of collaboration and mutual inspiration. Neil began by going through his "scrapyard" of jotted notes and phrases he had collected, looking for connections to stitch together, while Geddy and Alex began by simply playing, setting up a rhythm machine and jamming along with guitar and bass. Gradually the songs began to come together, "Out Of The Cradle" among the first, along with "Vapor Trail," "The Stars Look Down," and "Earthshine." That last is notable for being the only Rush song that was later completely rewritten, keeping the same lyrics but replacing every single musical part. "Cradle" also underwent some serious surgery as time passed, and that was the kind of relaxed approach they were taking, allowing them to reexamine songs with the luxury of perspective, and repair or replace any parts that didn't survive that test of time. Sometimes a developing song seemed to lose momentum, or their faith (the critical force), and was abandoned, but that had always been their version of "natural selection." More songs came together too, like "Secret Touch," "Sweet Miracle," and "How It Is," and as often happens, once they had a few songs finished that they liked, the newer ones started to get weirder. Daring grows out of confidence (or what the ancient Greeks called "hubris," I guess), and from this combination came "One Little Victory," "Ceiling Unlimited," and "Nocturne." Six months on, Rush felt that they had enough material now to benefit from an "objective ear," a coproducer. Paul Northfield had worked with them as recording engineer on albums going back to 'Moving Pictures' and 'Signals' in the early eighties, and on several live records over the years. Rush wanted someone who knew them and their music well enough to make a shortcut straight into the composing and arranging area, for there were still more songs to be written and organized, and make a transition from there straight to recording. There was an important difference in the way they made this record, compared to any in the past. Usually they would spend a period of time working on the songwriting, arranging, and their individual parts, then do some last-minute preproduction work with a coproducer before moving to a big-time studio to start the "official" recording. The pressure this imposed on them could be productive, and in particular Neil found that it could often drive him to a level of performance he hadn't reached before, but this time they wanted to do it differently-more gradually, with more time for revision and renovations. Because of the way Rush decided to do this album, that is in a more relaxed fashion, 'Vapor Trails' their 17th album took over a year to put together. And I am sure all of you reading this review are now saying "Was It Worth It"? Well, let me tell you having listened to 'Vapor Trails' quite a few times now, one thing I can tell you is that this album gets better with every listen and 'Vapor Trails' rocks, in fact it rocks harder than anything Rush has done in the past 20 years. It is also apparent from listening to 'Vapor Trails' that Rush have concentrated more on their actual songwriting this time, you won't find any keyboards or guitar solo's, but you will find as I have already mentioned tracks that will rock yer socks off. 'Vapor Trails' is loaded with Rush trademarks — Lee's deft bass playing and high, nasal vocals; Lifeson's crisp, ringing guitars; and Peart's extraordinarily precise drumming. For me 'Vapor Trails', is an excellent album with many memorable tracks, and here are a few of my favourites 'One Little Victory', wow!, what an opener, I think Neil's drums must be on fire, he starts this track with a fast and furious flurry with aggressive churning guitars, then there's a shift to more of a melodic anthem with multi-layered vocals from Geddy. This is one rocker of a track.'Ceiling Unlimited', this is another rocker of a track with some great guitar work from Alex. 'Ghost Rider', this track has a slightly slower in pace than the previous two tracks, but for me is one of those tracks that keeps on popping into my head. Very catchy! 'Peaceable Kingdom', this is a track that reflects the events of September 11, 2001. "Dream of
a Peaceable Kingdom Quite a heavy track with some fairly aggressive guitar work from Alex, there are some quieter moments, and for me shows some similarity to Kings X 'The Stars Look Down', the title of this track, was taken from a novel by A.J. Cronin. Another tracks with some quite heavy guitar, but thers also a more mellow side to it to with some backwards guitar incorpoated too. 'Vapor Trail', this is the title track and has quite a strong catchy melody, a little mellower than most of the tracks on this album. 'Nocturne', this track is fairly slow in pace through the verses and just explodes when you get to the chorus, everything is just so precise about this track and there's some quite heavy guitar once again from Alex. If your looking for Rush to rock again, then this is an album for you. Highly Recommended!!! Released By Anthem (Atlantic): www.atlantic-records.com Rush websites: www.rush.com
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