Review Summary: Rush with synth is different, but not necessarily bad
The 80’s were an… interesting time for Rush, to say the least. After their smash hit album
Moving Pictures, Rush began delving further and further into the world of synthesizers and electronics. First came
Signals, then
Grace Under Pressure, then
Power Windows, and finally, in 1987,
Hold Your Fire, the album that would mark a pseudo-end to Rush’s synth era. Understandably, Rush fans look upon this era of work with a little skepticism. After all, Rush is primarily a guitar-driven band. What happens when the guitars no longer become the driving force of the album?
Hold Your Fire is the answer to that, a pop-rock album that somehow manages to still sound very Rush in its entirety.
Let’s get the obvious gripe out of the way here: Alex Lifeson’s guitar work here has been significantly reduced from Rush’s previous and later work. An unfortunate constant of the synth era of Rush,
Hold Your Fire nevertheless contains some more prominent guitar from Lifeson compared to their earlier albums released in the decade, seen in tracks such as album closer “High Water”, opener “Force Ten”, hidden gem “Turn the Page”, and album highlight “Time Stand Still”, but his presence on the album is still dramatically toned down, usually to the album’s minor detriment. When he shines, he shines, but his lack of truly memorable moments here compared to albums past still drags things down a bit.
That being said, the album fires on all cylinders pretty much everywhere else. Geddy Lee’s vocals are solid as ever, and Neil Peart’s drums continue to impress as they always have on each previous album (most notable to me is his timbali triplet at the start of “Time Stand Still” which was inspired by a Genesis record that, unbeknownst to Neil, was recorded with the tape slowed down). While Peart’s lyrics aren’t his greatest, tracks such as the mystical “High Water” and the energetic “Prime Mover” show that he can still write some of the greatest lyrics in progressive rock.
Of course, the album isn’t exactly perfect from song to song. I fully admit to being biased to this album since it was the first Rush album I ever listened to in full, but I can admit to some songs being duds here. “Second Nature” sort of just comes and goes, and despite some stellar moments, “Mission” tends to drag a bit here and there. But even a bad Rush song tends to still be enjoyable to listen to, and you can still sit back and enjoy the album from beginning to end without feeling the need to skip any of the songs. And even despite the obvious pop-rock trappings that the album is covered in,
Hold Your Fire still contains that definitive, unexplainable Rush spark, the sort of unique quality that certain bands have that you can never pin down.
I need to stress here that Rush’s experimentations with synth in this album does not make
Hold Your Fire bad. It just makes it different. The album still manages to be a strong outing from the Toronto three-piece that shows each member’s strengths, while providing a sound that is somewhat unique from the rest of the albums in their discography. At the end of the day, I will still be saying that this is a good album. Give it a shot, and who knows? You may even rank it among the band’s best.
