Power Windows Rush

• 1 The Big Money 05:37
• 2 Grand Designs 05:06
• 3 Manhattan Project 05:05
• 4 Marathon 06:09
• 5 Territories 06:18
• 6 Middletown Dreams 05:15
• 7 Emotion Detector 05:11
• 8 Mystic Rhythms 06:02
• Total Runtime 44:43

Info for Power Windows

After the success of its 1984 synth-driven album, GRACE UNDER PRESSURE, Rush continued in the same direction for its follow-up, POWER WINDOWS. Although the trio had made a name for itself originally with hard-edged prog-rock, Rush began embracing new wave sounds by the mid '80s. While many other hard rock bands of the '70s who made similar musical detours struggled to maintain their audiences in the '80s, Rush thrived and expanded its already huge fan base even further. While past Rush releases like 2112 contained tales of science fiction, by POWER WINDOWS, head wordsmith/drummer Neil Peart was penning lyrics about current events, especially the threat of nuclear war. 'Big Money' was a popular clip on MTV, while other Rush highlights of the era included 'The Manhattan Project,' 'Marathon,' 'Mystic Rhythms,' and 'Territories.' After the release of POWER WINDOWS, Rush slowly began returning to its more hard rock-based roots, resulting in COUNTERPARTS and TEST FOR ECHO during the '90s.

While critics routinely dismissed Rush as pretentious operatic heavy-metal bozos, this indefatigable Canadian trio was actually busy becoming the Police of power rock. On their recent studio LPs, leading up to 1984's appropriately titled Grace under Pressure, they tightened up their sidelong suites and rhythmic abstractions into balled-up song fists, art-pop blasts of angular, slashing guitar, spatial keyboards and hyperpercussion, all resolved with forthright melodic sense.

'The Big Money,' the first hot FM focus track from Power Windows, may be the best of Rush's Cool Wave experiments to date. Neil Peart whips up a Molotov drum cocktail that is half Stewart Copeland psycho-ska and half 'Blitzkrieg Bop'; from deep within his Edge-like echo pit, guitarist Alex Lifeson opens fire with a metallic descending chord sequence that rips through the song's chrome-finish production like grapeshot. In 'Territories,' a simple disco-style pulse becomes a Lifeson-spurred gallop, his Chinese guitar chatter alternating with the telegraphic synth patterns and sheet-metal keyboards played by singer-bassist Geddy Lee.

To most U2 and Simple Minds fans, these may not seem like major advances. There are moments when Power Windows sounds too much like the sum of its Eighties inspirations — that ghostly U2 resonance, the Police-like mesh of multirhythms and ping-pong dub effects. Yet Rush, no doubt responding to familiar impulses, revs up these songs with brute metal force. Lifeson's solo in 'Grand Designs' teeters on white noise, his demon strokes dissolving into feedback howls and strangled vibrato, while Peart and Lee subdivide the beat into frenzied algebra.

This is not a case of old Seventies arena-rock dogs fudging new tricks. Rush remains faithful to vintage progressive aesthetics but has accepted the challenge of the postpunk upheaval and made notable adjustments. 'Manhattan Project' is the first song about the A-bomb that successfully combines Genesis-like grandeur, real strings and a breakaway middle à la Siouxsie and the Banshees at full throttle. Lee has also toned down his keening shriek to a more accessible tenor; Peart, the group's uncompromising lyricist, has streamlined his verse to pithy effect.

None of this is likely to impress the New Wave in crowd, which is their loss. Because Power Windows may well be the missing link between Yes and the Sex Pistols.' (David Fricke, Rolling Stone)

Geddy Lee, vocals, guitar, classical guitar, keyboards, bass guitar
Alex Lifeson, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 12-string guitar
Neil Peart, drums, percussion

Recorded at The Manor, Air Studios Montserrat and Sarm East, London.
Strings recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London.
Choir recorded at Angel Studios, London.
Engineered by Jimbo 'James' Barton
Mastered by Bob Ludwig
Produced by Rush and Peter Collins

Digitally remastered

No biography found.

This album contains no booklet.