What makes Rush particularly interesting to those who follow them is the historical evolution of their sound. Perhaps because it's hard to find a similar evolution in any other band. Although many groups try to change their approach during their career, there are very few who have changed style multiple times... And Rush is one of them... it wasn't enough for them to change their way of playing; they wanted to choose a rock style each time that would adapt to the tastes of the times... So, the band started their career with the hard rock style that distinguished bands like Led Zeppelin and Cream... because the early seventies were fertile ground for that style. Then they realized that the very fertile ground was the progressive rock of bands like Yes and Genesis... and so they moved (perhaps a bit late) into a prog-rock phase with song structures and atmospheres that strongly recall that style. And in the '80s? What do you think they could have done? Well, you guessed it, the answer is "what a lot of people were doing"! A style close to the British new wave and especially the synth pop very much in vogue in those years! And the strange and beautiful thing is that while many bands that tried to deviate slightly from their characteristic sound had to endure a lot of criticism which at a certain point becomes inevitably unbearable (see the Dream Theater, now a clinical and pathological case), Rush did not suffer much from this torture. They managed to greatly deviate from their traditional style while still gathering great approval from most fans and releasing albums considered "masterpieces".
And so, in the '80s, Rush found themselves practically engulfed in the electronic vortex that was very popular in those years, forgetting, as if they had never had them, the hard rock roots of their origins and the complex prog structures of the late '70s (while still maintaining a certain attitude towards experimentation).
The turning point, probably already anticipated by "Moving Pictures" where there was still a certain progressive tendency in the structures, was fully realized with "Signals" where numerous songs featured a predominance of synthesizers never so evident. In 1984, came "Grace Under Pressure" which even intensified these characteristics, making Rush really seem like any band of the eighties (but never putting their personality into question)... This time, a particular funky component is added, perhaps missing in "Signals", marked by the rhythmic guitar of Alex Lifeson and the bass of Geddy Lee which helps to give a sound even more aligned with the rhythms of the music of the time; and, on the other hand, the synthesizer work is more widely electro-pop: here are the Rush of the '80s summarized in a few words (since the synth period will continue with "Power Windows" and "Hold Your Fire").
The first two tracks are already an example of what has been said: "Distance Early Warning" and "Afterimage" are two songs with characteristic liveliness where rhythm and the electronic sound of the synth immerse us in that warm, festive '80s atmosphere. "Red Sector A" impresses with its typically dance drumming and that ever-rich and rhythmic electronic background! The following "The Enemy Within" also hits the mark, a track with an almost disco vocation with a guitar almost in ska/reggae style. Not bad is the next "The Body Electric" which is always able to maintain a good liveliness, more subdued is the next "Kid Gloves" with the guitar more in the foreground, a punk-like rhythm and less incisive synths. Thrilling is the penultimate "Red Lenses", my favorite, with those particularly dark atmospheres, those bass lines of an impeccable Geddy Lee and those synths that create an almost surreal atmosphere that fades into the darkness and chaos of the night! It's a shame it never gets mentioned among the album's best tracks, and trust me, it deserves it! Also beautiful is the final "Between The Wheels" where the distorted synths are increasingly in the foreground, more inspired than ever in an atmosphere always very "One Shot"!
An energetic, lively, loaded album this "Grace Under Pressure"! Once again, it testifies to a band that whatever they produce, in whatever way, inevitably hits the mark. A must-have, like the entire discography of the trio!
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Distant Early Warning (04:57)
Distant Early Warning
An ill wind comes arising
Across the cities of the plain
There's no swimming in the heavy water
No singing in the acid rain
Red alert
Red alert
It's so hard to stay together
Passing through revolving doors
We need someone to talk to
And someone to sweep the floors
Incomplete
Incomplete
Chorus
The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy
But I worry about you
I know it makes no difference
To what you're going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg
And I worry about you...
Cruising under your radar
Watching from satellites
Take a page from the red book
Keep them in your sights
Red alert
Red alert
Left and rights of passage
Black and whites of youth
Who can face the knowledge
That the truth is not the truth?
Obsolete
Absolute
Chorus
Absalom, Absalom, Absalom
02 Afterimage (05:05)
Suddenly, you were gone
From all the lives you left your mark upon
I remember
How we talked and drank into the misty dawn
I hear the voices
We ran by the water on the wet summer lawn
I see the footprints
I remember
I feel the way you would
I feel the way you would
I feel, feel the way you would
Tried to believe but you know it's no good
This is something that just can't be understood
I remember
The shouts of joy skiing fast through the woods
I hear the echoes
I learned your love for life,
I feel the way that you would
I feel your presence
I remember
I feel the way you would
I feel the way you would
I feel, feel the way you would
This just can't be understood
Tried to believe but you know it's no good
This is something that just can't be understood
I remember
I feel the way you would
I feel the way you would
I feel, feel the way you would
This just can't be understood
04 The Enemy Within (04:36)
Things crawl in the darkness
That imagination spins
Needles at your nerve ends
Crawl like spiders on your skin
Pounding in your temples
And a surge of adrenaline
Every muscle tense to fence the enemy within
[Chorus:]
I'm not giving in to security under pressure
I'm not missing out on the promise of adventure
I'm not giving up on implausible dreams
Experience to extremes
Experience to extremes...
Suspicious looking stranger
Flashes you a dangerous grin
Shadows across your window...
Was it only trees in the wind?
Every breath a static charge
A tongue that tastes like tin
Steely-eyed outside to hide the enemy within
To you, is it movement or is it action?
Is it contact or just reaction?
And you... revolution or just resistance?
Is it living, or just existence?
Yeah, you! It takes a little more persistence
To get up and go the distance
[Chorus]
05 The Body Electric (05:02)
One humanoid escapee
One android on the run
Seeking freedom beneath
A lonely desert sun.
Trying to change it's program
Trying to change the mode
Crack the code
Images conflicting
Into data overload.
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
S.O.S.
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
In distress
1-0-0-1-0-0.
Memory banks unloading
Bytes break into bits
Unit one's in trouble and it's
Scared out of it's wits.
Guidance systems breakdown
A struggle to exist
To resist
A pulse of dying power
In a clenching plastic fist.
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
S.O.S.
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
In distress
1-0-0-1-0-0.
It replays each of the days
A hundred years of routines
Bows its head and prays
To the mother of all machines
All machines.
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
S.O.S.
1-0-0-1-0-0-1
In distress
1-0-0-1-0-0
It replays each of the days
A hundred years of routines
Bows its head and prays
To the mother of all machines
Mother of all machines.
08 Between the Wheels (05:44)
To live between a rock
And a hard place
In between time
Cruising in the prime time
Soaking up the cathode rays.
To live between the wars
In our time
Living in real time
Holding the good time
Holding on to yesterdays.
You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just pass you by.
Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down
We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets red glare
Down to "Brother can you spare"
Another war another wasteland
And another lost generation.
It slips between your hands like water
This living in real time
A dizzying lifetime
Reeling by on celluloid.
Struck between the eyes
By the big time world
Walking uneasy streets
Hiding beneath the sheets
Got to try and fill the void.
You know how that rabbit feels
Going under your speeding wheels
Bright images flashing by
Like windshields towards a fly
Frozen in the fatal climb
But the wheels of time
Just passed you by.
We can go from boom to bust
From dreams to a bowl of dust
We can fall from rockets red glare
Down to "Brother can you spare"
Another war another wasteland
And another lost generation.
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Other reviews
By vellutogrigio
'Grace Under Pressure' remains one of Rush’s most convincing works of the ‘80s.
The album uses electronics to render the concepts of automation, repetitiveness, and alienation.