How draining was tax season this year for me? Not only did it
\nempty my wallet, but it took almost all my energy to listen to
\nanything this week. Hell, I didn’t even feel like running possibly
\nthe most hated review we’ve ever featured on these pages – my
\nbasting of Yes’s
\nTales From Topographic Oceans<\/i>. (Too bad we already reviewed
\nRevolver<\/i> by The Beatles; I could have had a field day with
\nthe song “Taxman”.)<\/p>\n
Needing a serious pick-me-up, I turned to the halls of the
\nPierce Memorial Archives to find an old standby that had never
\nfailed to improve my mood. Enter, stage right, Rush with their 1977
\nrelease
\nA Farewell To Kings<\/i>. I first discovered this album when I
\nwas getting into Geddy Lee and crew in high school. I picked it up
\nmainly because it was (I think) $4.99, but this album quickly won
\nme over. Today, it still ranks among Rush’s best work.<\/p>\n
At first glance, one could say that this album is both sparse
\n(only six songs make it up, and the album clocks in at just over 37
\nminutes) and overblown (three of the tracks seem to be production
\npieces). Granted, it’s a short album – but it is a step down from
\nthe “production” that was
\n2112<\/i>. If anything,
\nA Farewell To Kings<\/i> is
\nambitious<\/i>, but not in a snobbish way.<\/p>\n
From Alex Lifeson’s opening classical lines of “A Farewell To
\nKings” to the blast of the full band, Rush almost constantly click
\non all cylinders on this album. Lee’s vocals still bordered on
\nbanshee wailing at times, but he continued a pattern of moving
\ntowards more middle-of-the-road vocal lines. Lifeson’s guitar lines
\nflow quite well throughout this album, while Neal Peart begins to
\nshow the expansive knowledge of percussion that he has. The opening
\nportion of “Xanadu” shows this, with Peart performing on everything
\nfrom tubular bells to temple blocks.<\/p>\n
“A Farewell To Kings” and “Xanadu” take up the whole first half
\nof the album, but they are tracks that set the mood for the whole
\nalbum and remain some of Rush’s best (if underappreciated) material
\never. Simply put, these songs blow me away every time I hear
\nthem.<\/p>\n
\nA Farewell To Kings<\/i> will always be remembered for the song
\n“Closer To The Heart,” which is rightfully considered a classic of
\nthe Rush discography. Again building up the musical layers of the
\nsong (starting with guitar to bells, bass to drums and
\nsynthesizers, crescendoing with the full band kicking the song into
\noverdrive), Rush achieves musical nirvana on this song. (I’ll
\nalways remember this track as being one of the few guitar solos I
\ncould actually play almost note-for-note.)<\/p>\n
Of the remaining three tracks, “Cinderella Man” and “Madrigal”
\nboth have strong moments, and are still pleasurable to listen to
\n(even if they’re not quite as strong as their neighbors). The only
\nnegative – and I use this word loosely here – track is “Cygnus
\nX-1,” which builds on the space theme from
\n2112<\/i> and creates its own monstrosity. Had this track been
\npared back a bit, it would have been a little better – this is the
\nonly example I found where Rush gets too ambitious.<\/p>\n
\nA Farewell To Kings<\/i> could well be the sleeper in Rush’s vast
\ncatalog – falling in between the groundbreaking
\n2112<\/i> and the disappointment of
\nHemispheres<\/i> (that’s another review for another day), it
\ntends to be forgotten until people really start getting serious
\nabout this band. If anything, I’d like to consider this album a
\ntreasure chest waiting to be discovered by new legions of fans.
\nIt’s well worth the investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5697],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36216","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-rush","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36216"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36216"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}