Good day, all.
So apparently, my post about the Gabrielle Giffords tragedy got taken down. Oh well.
I have been wanting to write about music again, so I fianlly decided to up and do it. And I wanted to create a blog series about albums that may have been a subject for debate. These are albums that tend to be overlooked, overshadowed, controversial, and/or divisive, but they definitely have its share of detractors and defenders.
My debut piece on this subject is that of Rush's 1975 record, Caress of Steel, the band's third album. The Caress period was not a great time for the young Canadian trio. After two albums and countless tours opening up for acts such as Kiss and Uriah Heep, the band's blend of Zeppelin and Yes wasn't entirely resonating with rock fans the way their label, Mercury Records, had hoped for.
Background:
Caress of Steel, their second album released in 1975, didn't make Rush's fortunes any brighter; In fact, they got worse. While Rush (1974) and Fly By Night (1975) had songs that got some radio play, sales weren't exactly stellar. Rush got no higher than #105 on the Pop Charts, and Fly By Night fared a little worse, peaking at #113. Caress of Steel performed even worse than those records, stalling at #148. The tour to support the album had the band playing at smalltown bars and it was jokingly called "The Down the Tubes Tour."
Why did Caress of Steel fail to attract a mass audience? While Fly By Night saw the band incorporating more progressive rock influences on tracks such as "By-Tor and the Snow Dog," Caress of Steel took their flirtations with prog to the next level. Out of the album's five tracks, two of them are over 10 minutes long, including "The Fountain of Lamneth," which takes up the album's second side and barely misses the 20 minute mark. This was 1975, though. Progressive rock had its share of acts that were able to achieve mainstream success; Yes' Tales From Topographic Oceans was a double album, containing four songs at 20+ minutes a pop and went at least gold, Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick hit #1 in 1972 and that album was one 42 minute song, and Genesis got more and more successful with each album. Why were people reticent to get into Rush?
Well, it was probably because that the first two Rush records were good, not great. The band was still very much learning how to write songs and trying to incorporate their influences coherently. Plus, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee were still getting to know Neil Peart, who actually didn't join the band until after they recorded their debut. With two decent albums under their belt, and with no hits to grant them a pop audience other than stoners who loved hard rock, Caress of Steel did little to even sustain that audience. It's a pretty dark record, perhaps the darkest album they ever did, and a very disjointed one. Even to this day, it's an overlooked album. I have never heard any songs from the album get radio play, and none of the songs really appear on Rush's setlists these days. Rush fans are still divided on Caress of Steel, perhaps even more so than any other record they did. Many people recognize that Caress of Steel was the stepping stone to 2112 and beyond, but feel that 2112 and pretty much any album they did up until 1982 were far superior to this record. 2112 may have been Rush's breakout record, but Caress of Steel was the water that broke the dam. Still, Caress gets no love except by maybe the band's most hardcore fans. One of those fans being my childhood best friend's dad, who now plays in a Rush tribute band in New Jersey called Jacob's Ladder that supposedly covers the album in its entirety. I would love to see that; Hey Dave, take Jacob's Ladder out on tour and play Seattle, will ya?
Oh, and Caress was the band's third album after two poor-selling albums, and an album like Thick as a Brick was made after Jethro Tull had already gained success. Same goes for Yes and the monstrosity known as Topographic Oceans (future review maybe?).
"Bastille Day" (Live 1976)
What do I think:
I, however, thoroughly enjoy this album. A lot. In fact, I like this album more than 2112, and as it stands, it may be my third or fourth favorite Rush record. It's a challenging listen for sure, but listening to it several times makes it an easier listen. It opens with "Bastille Day," which is a heavy rocker much like Fly By Night's opener "Anthem," except perhaps not as pronounced as "Anthem." Also, when the biggest singles of the year consisted of "Love Will Keep Us Together" and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," pop audiences probably wouldn't have an embraced a song about the French Revolution. The only other rocker on this album is the silly "I Think I'm Going Bald," supposedly a nod to Kiss' "Goin' Blind." While not a bad song, it's not exactly their most memorable either. It does sound like recycled riffs from their first album, and in 1975, the three men in Rush probably would not consider balding a major issue - these days maybe. "Lakeside Park" is the only filler track on here.
This brings us to the two epic length tracks on the album. Side A ends with "The Necromancer," a 12 minute track which is pretty ominous. Inspired by The Hobbit, and with each of the song's three parts opening by deadpan narration (provided by Neil Peart, if I'm not mistaken), it's very scattered. There is no solid riff uniting the piece, and it almost sounds like 3 entirely different songs in one incoherent package. Yet despite its incoherence, the heavy riffs are enticing, and the more melodic pssages are incredible. Obviously, Rush would get better with songs in the 10-12 minute range over time ("Xanadu," "The Camera Eye," etc), but "The Necromancer" gets the ball rolling.
Side Two is entirely comprised of "The Fountain of Lamneth," an epic that just falls short of 20 minutes long (a proto-2112, if you will). Unlike "The Necromancer," this piece is a little more solid, with many riffs being reprised in later sections of the song (the first and last sections, mainly), and overall it goes together better. It also further brigns the album into more brooding and eerie territory with the "No One At The Bridge" section, and the more plaintive and wistful side of the band with "Panacea," which is anchored by a classical guitar. I don't know about you, but I actually prefer "The Fountain of Lamneth" over Rush's other epic length compositions. It's an underrated gem in an album that really is bronzed over time, and I'd be interested and thoroughly pleased if the band ressurected it on tour.
So, to any novice Rush fans, if you want to hear where 2112 came from, listen to Caress of Steel. Yes, it's incoherent and shaky in some areas, and the dry production of the album is a bit of a turn off, but there is still some high quality music on this record. For me, this marks the start of Rush's creative peak (even if the band didn't know it at the time), and I find myself listening to this album a lot these days.
"No One At The Bridge" - the 3rd section of "The Fountain of Lamneth." One of the most moving and dark pieces of music they did
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