Rush Grace Under Pressure Song by Song

Maybe it's just me. I can hear the falsetto, but there's just something odd sounding about it. Maybe I'm slipping.

 

One of the best Rush albums, absolutely! Although I like Power Windows and Hold Your Fire as well, Grace Under Pressure is as consistently good as Signals (if you compare these albums as one era).

 

Yeah, same album! Like I say, I love the album but I hate how it sounds; a problem I've had with Rush ever since they got rid of Broon, really.

 

I struggled with this one after a disappointing gig on the Signals tour.

I really liked Distant and Afterimage, but the rest of it just felt too 'modern' for me at the time. The fact that the band didn't tour the album in the UK probably distanced me from it further.

But over the last few tours I've enjoyed the cuts they've introduced into their setlists, and I've come back to the album with a fresh pair of ears. It's ironic, that at the time I felt Lifeson was being overshadowed by the synths, when that particular problem became more obvious on the follow up Power Windows.

I like Grace a lot more these days, but I still feel it's sound dates it into a specific period, whereas I feel the pre-Signals stuff has a more timeless quality to it.

 

But who has said that?

 

This is a great album. My favourite song from this album is Kid Gloves. It's not my favourite Rush album and I do prefer Power Windows over this one but it's a god damn good album. It's in my top 10 Rush albums if I'm not mistaken.

 

One of my 3 favorite Rush albums, along with Signals and Moving Pictures.

 

Great album. The music videos for this album are cringe-worthy because of the hair. <shudders>

 

Great guitar solo in "Kid Gloves"!

 

I was a teenager when this and the 80s albums came out. They felt very contemporary at the time and hold up excellent. Their use of synthesized sounds was always creative and I go back to this era often. Power Windows is my fave of the trilogy, but Afterimage is one of their most emotive songs - reminds me of the people I lost back then. The band sounds very fierce and committed on GUP. The worst thing about it is the thin sound quality. Alex - always creative - managed to find his unique niche in this music. His abstraction is very beautiful and artful. Rush is so so so great and I'm happy I was around for a big chunk of it.

 

Distant Early Warning - Rush always had fantastic openers, this song being no exception. Sparse atmospheric guitar playing highlights the bass line which is the focus of the song during the verses that lead way to an onslaught of keys, exploding into the driving chorus where the guitar plays a much larger role in supporting the tune. Fantastic guitar work by Lifeson, especially during the bridge. This song sees Rush continue its transition from sci-fi lyrics into more personal and grounded material, lyrically, setting the cold war era tone of the album nicely.

 

What a great opener, with that heavy synth blast reminiscent of an electromagnetic pulse, then the band comes CHARGING in. The lyrics slay me on this one. The nuclear threat of mutually assured destruction, mixed with new-parent anxiety...

Take a page from the Red Book and keep them in your sights, red alert!

Absalom, Absalom, Absalom!

Neil must have been thinking of this with the title
Distant Early Warning Line - Wikipedia

 

Even Glen (Johnny Depp's character) in A Nightmare On Elm Street was a Grace Under Pressure fan until his blood splattered the poster! LOL

 

Love this album.... it definitely has a dark vibe not shared by any other Rush record.

 

Great Rush album, definitely my favorite from their synth/new wave era and probably my second fave Rush album in general. Red Lenses in the only weak track on it.
Tunes Between the Wheels, Distant Early Warning, Kid Gloves and Afterimage(great lyrics) are highlights on P/G, for me.

 

Totally. I was in high school in the 80s, and this was sort of a topical, current events "message" song that was still cool. Or cool to me anyway. I always love Geddy's bass line and Alex's washes of guitar reverb or whatever in the beginning. And with Neil's drums, it almost sounds like a reggae tune. But then of course it's anything but.

I always wonder, as far as the lyrics, who is worried about who in this song, but then I think it's just generally indicative of the overarching angst folks felt in the Cold War era. And then you get older and realize all eras have their imminent perils. I feel like we've been staring down the tip of the iceberg for decades now.

Other recollections: At the time, I was thrown off by the heavy keyboards on this album, as I'm sure many Rush fans were. And I was a new Rush fan, having only picked up the band at Moving Pictures. So during these years I always wanted more "Moving Pictures" Rush.

Also, I got a little ragged on by one of the "cool" (read: idiot) kids at school for liking this album (and band), but then one of the semi-popular lacrosse players gave me cover, as he was a Rush fan.

Ah, high school.

 

What was the jock listening to, Poison?

 

I completely love this album. I only really got into Rush around the time that "A Show of Hands" was released (indeed I may have bought ASOH before any studio albums but the memory fades 30+ years down the line).

For all that Alex Lifeson was battling against Geddy's synths, he was in monster form on this album. Example: solo on "Kid Gloves"; vintage deranged Lerxst at his best.

 

Oh, and the Grace Under Pressure TOUR video; bought it on VHS and returned it after a day as, even by the standards of 1980s prerecorded tapes, the picture quality was abysmal (in these days of Blu Ray and 4K, any 1980s artist who went the to the extra trouble to capture their live shows on film instead of crappy SD video made the right choice. Just look at some of the Queen stuff shot on film. Sadly, most of the Rush stuff is on video).

Great set, though, with a proper reading of the Fear trilogy, and the CD of the show in the Replay X3 box gets regular use.

 

No the "cool" kid, now that I think about it, wasn't really cool. But he enjoyed the freedom that comes with being a complete screw up. He dressed like Haircut 100 and was into obscure punk bands. He got expelled a few weeks before graduation, which is kind of sad.

 

Didn't the OP wanna go song by song with this thread?

 

Yes, I started with a review or Distant Early Warning a few posts back.

 

Likewise, though not across the board for me. Good solid album and light years ahead of PW, which to me marked the era of Rush that was blandly samey.

Power Windows, Presto, Test for Echo, to a slightly lesser degree Roll the Bones, Counterparts - some okay individual tracks, but by and large, forgettable stuff

Grace Under Pressure was, until Vapor Trails, their last really good album (IMO).

 

I love the album. I saw the tour which was great too.

"Distant Early Warning" is a great opening track. I remember when my friends and I first heard it we were a little unsure about it. Signals was definitely a shift into more prog-pop land and synths than even Moving Pictures had been. But Grace Under Pressure sounded pretty unique as a whole. My friends and I quickly warmed to it (but none of us like Power Windows... to many bad stock keyboard sounds).

 

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