Published on Jul 24, 2002
For a while in the ’80s, Geddy Lee and the other guys in Rush
seemed to be performing Olympian feats with their music. With rare
exception, each album they put out (starting with 1980’s
Permanent Waves) took the foundation they had laid down and
built even further upon it, pushing their music into new
territories that were both challenging and exciting. Their previous
two albums to this point,
Grace Under Pressure and
Power Windows, featured a band which was at the top of their
game creatively, especially in the use of synthesizers. How they
were able to keep such a high quality of work up for so long is
amazing, even to this day. I’ve spent the better part of three days
listening to nothing but Rush in chronological order, and these
discs still impress me.
Hold Your Fire marks a step back for Rush. A much more
challenging (and not quite as accessible) album as some of its
predecessors, Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart almost seem like
they run out of gas creatively, and tried to create a sequel to
Power Windows. While this is not the best idea that Rush had
in their career, it’s also not nearly as wretched as it could have
been; in fact, some tracks prove they deserved to be in the
spotlight (though they’ve been all but forgotten over the years –
which is a crime in and of itself).
Rush seems to briefly flirt with industrial music, especially at
the start of the disc with “Force Ten”. Instead, the track becomes
a solid rocker with some gentle interludes that keep the listener
on their toes. It’s still kind of a fun track to listen to, as is
“Time Stand Still,” the wanna-be single which features the guest
vocals of Aimee Mann (then still best known as a member of ‘Til
Tuesday). So far, so good – even though there is very little
musical growth evident as it was on previous discs.
Sadly, only two other songs stand out as being excellent on
Hold Your Fire. “Turn The Page,” another crowd favorite at
the time, latches onto the
Power Windows sound and carries it forward, bolstered by a
strong song and performances. But the best song on the whole disc
could well be “Prime Mover” – another popular one at the time which
just seemed to fall out of favor quickly. Too bad; this one seems
to capture Rush the best on this disc, touching on both melodic and
harder edges of their music with a thoughtful lyric like something
that could have been lifted straight from
Grace Under Pressure.
It’s not that the remainder of
Hold Your Fire is bad. But it does smack of redundancy;
don’t be surprised if you think you’ve heard it all before when you
listen to songs like “Lock And Key,” “Open Secrets” and “Second
Nature” (the last of these reminding me of something we’d hear a
few albums later on
Counterparts). But Rush seems comfortable with where their
music took them prior to this disc, and they’re perfectly happy to
remain motionless. The end result is music that fails to excite the
listener lke their previous works did. Think of it this way: I
still get excited when I hear a song like “Red Sector A”. I don’t
get excited over “Lock And Key”.
Ballads also seem to take too much of a leading role, with
“Mission” and “Tai Shan” suggesting that this may be the direction
Rush planned on moving in. If only there was some substance to
these tracks – I mean, I’ve got no problem with Rush embracing the
atmosphere of the Orient, but they sure could have made it more
interesting than they did on “Tai Shan”.
But for all this critic’s belly-aching,
Hold Your Fire is not a bad album. It is difficult to get
through, though – which may explain why, of all of Rush’s discs,
this is one which doesn’t get a lot of play in the Pierce Memorial
Archives. I think when it came out I bought it the first week or
two it was out, listened to it twice, scratched my head in
frustration and put it back on the shelves. Today,
Hold Your Fire shows that Rush still knew how to hit the
target, but they were starting to shoot blanks.