Published on Jun 26, 2002
Let’s recap things here for those readers who might be stumbling
into our Rush reviews for the first time: Following their recording
history, I’ve categorized Rush by “stages” – namely, four studio
albums and one live album per stage. Stage one featured
2112; stage two was Rush breaking out into the mainstream
with
Permanent Waves and
Moving Pictures. 1982 brought “stage three” and Rush’s
eleventh release (ninth studio),
Signals – and with it came a whole lot of baggage.
What sort of baggage? Geddy Lee and crew were facing the
unenviable task of following up
Moving Pictures, arguably their best release to this point.
Many people were probably expecting Rush to follow the same path
that led them to mass popularity, and create an album occasionally
seasoned with synthesizers while maintaining a fine balance between
rock and progressive.
Instead, Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart took a major U-turn
musically;
Signals is much more reliant on synthesizers and is as far
removed from Rush’s early days (and, in some ways, even the days of
“Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight”) as one could imagine. It’s definitely
an experiment for Rush; too bad it isn’t always successful.
This disc is best known for two surprise hits – “New World Man”
and “Subdivisions”. Both tracks are hardly in thesame league as,
say, “Tom Sawyer” just in their overall sound. Where “Tom Sawyer”
was arena rock wrapped in beautiful music, these two tracks are
pretty close to being pure pop with the occasional bite of guitar.
Even for hits, they’re a shade disappointing, since it often feels
like Rush’s freedom has been yanked out from under the band. That’s
not to say that these two songs are bad (though I’d give anything
to have rock radio in Chicago give “Subdivisions” a rest); indeed,
each track offers hints of what was to come in the near future for
Rush. But they’re not the band’s high water marks.
It often feels like there is a theme running through
Signals, despite the fact it is not a concept album. From
the standpoint of a listener going at this album without the
benefit of a lyric sheet, I get the impression that a lot of these
songs deal with the possibility of nuclear war and the catastrophic
destruction that would occur if both sides used the bomb. Tracks
like “Analog Kid,” “Chemistry” and “The Weapon,” while not
necessarily dealing directly with the subject, seem to have an
underlying theme to them. This is pure melancholia – and it’s not
always pretty.
The big weakness with these tracks
is the overreliance on synthesizers, as well as a shift to a
more mellow sound. Yes, Lee still is able to rock out on the bass,
and he shows he’s just as adept on keyboards as he is on the
four-string, but just because you have a new toy doesn’t mean you
have to bring it everywhere – in the case of this album,
practically every single track. It gets to the point that the one
real rocker, “The Analog Kid,” sounds out of place among the
electronica.
In Rush’s defense,
Signals could well be labeled as an experiment – namely,
Rush having enough say in the marketplace that they could create
music that pleased them in order to see how some ideas would work.
Synthesizers would be used for some time to come – sometimes good,
sometimes bad. Lee and company had to figure out just what the
right combination was for their purposes.
Signals misses the target with this combo.