jnoble

Yeah I didn’t really care for the flamenco style Lee adapted starting with Counterparts. He was playing too many notes too fast from then onto the end of the bands career And the lines weren’t nearly as well thought out and melodic

Lee was recording with a Wal bass, of course it sounded thin and twangy HFY and RTB are Rush's softest wimpiest sounding studio albums out of all of them. Presto was thin too but not as lush and overproduced

Couple years ago on this forum somebody complained that the studio production of HYF made it sound "like cardboard". I totally understand that as I mentioned in my previous comment on this topic here there's just way too much reverb on everything. I wonder if the master tapes could be remixed to strip some of that out and make it sound more dry and natural and powerful?

I categorize Virtuality in the same lane as Spindrift... a great guitar riff in search of a better song

Exactly. That 2112 was absolutely from the Germany performance even with the odd skipping in the introduction whooshing sounds which I thought was a defect on my CD but apparently it was on the source material tape. And yes I don't know why they didn't pitch correct that Twilight Zone bootleg either. It's not like they didn't have the capability to do so.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. I think if it really existed it would have been seen by now

I listen to this today possibly for the first time and I noticed... I don't know if anyone else has... that the key of the song is a half step slower than the proper key 2112 was played in like they pressed on the CD at the wrong speed. It appears to be the same performance on the Hemis tour bootleg 'Black Forest' I have that separately and it doesn't sound that way. On a slightly similar note I can't hear Geddy's rhythm guitar playing whatsoever on the passage to Bangkok from the Pink Pop Festival show during the guitar solo. It's like they didn't mic his amp or something when he was playing his double neck and switched to the six string guitar. You can hear him playing though at the end of Xanadu

If Open Secrets , High Water and Tai Shan didn't exist the album would be one of their best of the '80s IMHO. Yes it was soft lush and decidedly not hard rock but the arrangements melodies and music itself were very very good. The of-its-era production with everything soaked in a thick layer of reverb especially the drums and vocals didn't help it from sounding dated years later. I like to pretend that the album ended appropriately with Turn The Page and the last two songs were bonus extras not intended for the original album.

I liked it when it first came out and I remember being really excited when I heard the title track for the first time while at work played over local FM radio. And I remember in the very early days of the internet reading the pre-release song titles on the old TNMS site leaking the album title and myself insisting that Test For Echo was a working title not what the final product was going to be named... boy was I wrong about that lol Unfortunately it didn't age well and I like the title track and yes I do like Half The World REM-ish as it is...the lyrics are sadly more appropriate now than they've ever been. What is also the beginning of trends in Rush's music that I didn't like all the way up to the end of the band... the dense over distorted layers of guitar and bass making the songs sound muddy, the quality of Neil's lyrics just weren't as compelling as they used to be, decidedly mediocre "meh" songwriting (Color Of Right, Totem, Carve Away The Stone) , Geddy's bass tone wasn't good and I didn't care for Alex's choice in guitar tones either. Something that would continue on Vapor Trails 5 years later. I very rarely listen to it. The tour was good but the album was mediocre for their standards.

I feel like I'm one of the few Rush fans who really enjoys this song

The idea was well intentioned but the final result left something to be desired. Of course it's just my opinion I know a lot of fans love it

I was always surprised they didn't do BS&M live on the Counterparts tour

Nah. RTB was one half great (RTB, Dreamline, Bravado, GOAC, WMT) and one half extremely mediocre (all the other songs) Rupert Hine's marshmallow soft gutless production did it no favors.

RTB was the worst "Alex album" even more so than Presto/HYF/PoW in terms of guitar tone & placement in the mix

It wasn't just the mix, Alex's choice of guitar tones on that album was suspect

I consider Counterparts as their last really good sounding record. Everything after starting with TFE was a dense fuzzy overdistorted brickwalled too many layers of guitar/bass/vocals sonic mess.

I took the album out and gave it another try today while driving around. Nope, same results as always: I enjoy the introduction to most of the songs but once the words kick in my interest starts to fade around the two-minute mark and then my finger is soon jabbing the skip forward button on the CD player. And the process begins anew. Wish them Well is an incredibly mediocre weak-effort song especially for a band as talented as Rush. The guitar and drum parts are completely unimaginative, the lyric trite and forgettable. I find it hard to believe after they admitted they had a hard time with getting a good recording of the song that they didn't just decide to give up on it altogether and leave it on the editing room floor because the final result just sucks. If somebody remixed the harder songs on this album into shorter instrumentals... lyrics and storyline completely gone... because I do like a lot of the riffs and parts they came up with, I would enjoy that much better.

Basically, since I couldn't understand most of what Geddy was singing without the lyrics in front of me I couldn't follow the storyline. And since I couldn't follow the storyline the whole concept of the album was lost on me. And at that point my interest in continuing to listen goes down the drain rather quickly especially when some of the songs drone on two or three minutes longer than they really needed too. Take the title track for example: it starts off really well and builds up nicely but when it gets to that middle part where it sounds like Ged is singing through a cheap speakerphone a room away and even the most dedicated fan can't make out WTF he's saying, I hit the skip forward button. Which reminds me, it's been 10 years now and I've read the lyric sheet multiple times and I'm STILL completely unclear as to what exactly a "Clockwork Angel" is in context of the story

Great, now compared to the rest of you so far I'm going to come across like the turd in the punch bowl contrarian This is just my opinion so don't get angry but I find the album on the whole to be mostly unlistenable especially beginning to end. The songs are too long too dense too chaotic not enough hooks or parts that stick with you but above all I can't understand hardly a word Geddy is singing. Between his strained voice singing higher than he was capable of anymore, the bad mix and the wordy songs, he could be singing in a completely different language for all I knew. I liked the return to an epic story however I thought what Peart came up with seemed like a warmed-over rehash of Fountain of Lamneth combined with 2112: (a young idealistic man sets out to see and taste the world in a futuristic dystopian communistic society spread out over several songs and at the end becomes disenchanted) So overall I appreciate their effort and the band was certainly happy with the results and so were many fans and that's great but I hardly ever listen to the album. I've tried several times over the years but can't get past the first three songs before putting something else on. It's audibly abusive. It's been relegated to drink coaster status. I have no idea how the band signed off on that awful mix Nick did with hardly any separation between the layers of instruments and vocals. Here's my idea of what would make a better album: Total remix top to bottom. Nick R is not allowed anywhere near the board. Drop the weaker songs and rearrange the remaining songs into a different running order: Clockwork Angels Caravan BU2B Anarchist Carnies Seven Cities The Wreckers Headlong Flight The Garden

Well to be fair, Far Cry is one of the few songs on the entire album that sounds anything like the classic Rush

Wish Them Well sounds a lot like Green Day's Do You Know Your Enemy in the beginning

I think the muddy noise live sound started as far back as Counterparts. I rarely ever listen to Different Stages disc 1 or 2 because of how muddy and distorted it sounded

RTB is far and away the wimpiest sounding Rush album, even more so than HYF or Presto. Because as someone just pointed out, the songs were meant to rock out (Face Up, Neurotica) but are held in check by the thinnest weakest mix and sound ever. But it's not all on Rupert Hine, Alex was the one who was recording with such jangly tinny guitar tones and Geddy was still using his pinky-dinky Wal basses. You can't possibly record an aggressive sounding song with those particular guitars. And I don't know why Neil's drums sounded like Tupperware. (Think the beginning fill of You Bet Your Life) RTB and original mix Vapor Trails are both almost unlistenable past four songs but for completely opposite reasons. One is lacking balls the other too loud and aggressive

Geddy's bass sound was better back then (IMHO) because he was playing through amps on stage which sounded warmer. I didn't really care for his tone after he switched to direct input starting in 1996 TFE tour. It was too bright/clangy/dirty. And in the years before that his Steinberger and Wals just didn't have the aggressive tone of his Ric & Fender Jazz

I guess he's keeping the majority of his PRS guitars