This song ranking ranking would be very close to my own although I would drop Half the World a few notches down the list. I found this album to be very consistent, there are no songs I really dislike. The high points aren't super high, however. I think overall this album is a little bit of a step down down from Counterparts. I think the songwriting and production is a little better on that one, but its pretty close. One item worth discussing is Neil's drumming. This album came right after Neil studied with Freddy Gruber. I think the difference in his playing is quite noticeable. You really have more of jazz sound going on. Neil really lays back in the groove in some places, which can be good. I think the power of his fills is a bit diminished with this new style, and the drums overall seem more muffled than on CP. I think with subsequent albums he meld this new style with his earlier style to generally good results. Kudos to him for pushing himself. His Work in Progress instructional video is really interesting. He goes through each song on the album and you find out just how much thought he puts into developing the various drum parts.
Virtuality The heavy crunchy riff suggests something serious, but the lyrics are light and silly. Neil may have meant to create that dichotomy, but I'm not sure it worked. The transition to let's dance tonight section was interesting. I like it OK, in a 3/5 kind of way. Not great, but not skipworthy either.
Resist This song had no impact on me and I barely remember anything about it. Not good. Listened to it a second time. Still nothing connecting - the melody just has nothing for me to sink my teeth into. This is actually my least favorite on the album, an album that has a few of these unmemorable songs (for me).
Limbo I liked this one! The chorus of Geddys works for me, and the bass sounded particularly cool. I also liked the lyrics on this song more than most on this album. Right where the album was starting to lose me, this one brings me back in. No, it's not as interesting as most Rush instrumentals, but for T4E, it's almost a highlight! I barely noticed the sound effects.
Carve Away The Stone This is definitely a highlight of the album for me - THIS sounds like RUSH! (Which may be a strange thing to say since RUSH has had many different sounds over its life as a band. It just does for me.) Nice opening, nice melody, the vocals sound good, I love the bass that leads into the guitar solo. This is also oddly the first song where the drums really are noticeably interesting to me after a stretch of mehs. I'm so glad this album redeemed itself for me at the end.
Carve Away the Stone I love the guitar chords at the beginning. It's a great way to start and I also love it with just guitar and voice on the first verse until the bass and drums come in. That connecting bit sounds like a 5/4 pattern, with a last one of 4/4? I think I'm counting it right. It throws me off jumping to the chorus so quickly. That transition is a bit clunky, but it works better and makes more sense when it comes back for the repeat of the second verse/riff/chorus. Alex's solo is great with some super meaty playing from Geddy & Neil backing him up. That section and the following key change has some of the liveliest playing on the whole album. The outro also brings some enthusiastic playing. The vocal section at the end is well arranged with the multiple vocals lines and Alex's guitar all contrasting with each other in this confusing pattern. Lyrically I like the idea of slowly chipping away at your massive problem rather than trying to tackle the entire thing at once. There's perseverance involved, but also patience and some ingenuity. Last night when I listened to this track I wasn't very impressed, but after going through it 2 or 3 times today I see that it definitely works for me. It ends the album on a positive note. I think it's a good track and brings up the total. Test for Echo final thoughts: Having a good track as the closer definitely helps me feel better about this album. Also having 2 of the last 3 tracks be either good or great helps too. As I said a couple days ago, I always get thrown off course by the album starting so strong and then slowing heading down into worse and worse quality. Really, I could be fine with everything if Dog Years & Virtuality were removed. Still, as it stands 6/11 are either good or great and the other 5 are decent or outright bad. Having half of a good album and half not good is disappointing. I think I have a more positive thought about this album than I did a week ago by focusing on the positives. Driven is the best song here, with Resist right behind it. Test for Echo is a step down from Counterparts, but not as much as I used to think. GREAT Test for Echo Driven Resist GOOD Half the World The Color of Right Carve Away the Stone DECENT Time and Motion Totem Limbo BAD Dog Years Virtuality ***** Studio Album Ranking: Moving Pictures Signals Permanent Waves Presto A Farewell To Kings Counterparts Hemispheres Grace Under Pressure Fly By Night Caress of Steel Test for Echo Hold Your Fire Power Windows 2112 Roll the Bones S/T top 5 tunes so far (no changes): Limelight Freewill The Spirit of Radio Subdivisions Ghost of a Chance
This is my second favorite song off the album, with Driven being #1. Such an expansive song. The instruments sound like they could echo around the world, while the vocals narrow it down to being almost personal. In 1996, they explored ideas that are still very much current today. Technology has changed, rending some of the words obsolete, but this is a mordant comment on frivolity and it's lasting effects.
I think we have pretty much the same takes on this album. Your comments above, and your song rankings on this one are very much aligned with mine. I’m a little surprised there isn’t more love for Resist from more people, but that’s “freewill” for ya.
Limbo: You know something's wrong in Rush-land when even the instrumental can't raise my spirits. After "Where's My Thing" and "Leave That Thing Alone", this is nothing but a big disappointment. Again, Alex favours a compressed, shrill wall-of-sound approach over actual texture, and the result really wears on my ears. I also really wonder why Rush, of all people, thought they should jump in with the sampling craze, not just stealing two exclamations from Bobby "Borris" Pickett's "Monster Mash", but the entire intro of that track too! The synths also sound really thin and wishy-washy (what works on Mike Oldfield's new age records, doesn't work on a Rush track), and Geddy's vocalizing is just a weak attempt at recapturing some of that "2112 Overture" vibe. Overall, this leaves me awfully cold. Yeah, it's well played and arranged, but it doesn't appeal to me. It also feels like it's twice as long as it should be... Carve Away the Stone: After a horribly long string of average (and in one case, disastrous - I'm looking at you, "Dog Years"!) songs, a glimmer of hope arises with the final track. Again, the guitar riff sounds pretty bog standard (Don Ignacio's comparison to "Heat of the Moment" isn't so far off), and the sound is just the same as it's been throughout the record. But I like the musical and lyrical development, the odd rhythm and some other things here and there. The guitar solo isn't half bad either. Again, Rush would later do a bad (and much worse sounding) copy of this track - it's called "Wish Them Well"... Test for Echo summary: On the whole, a rather disappointing record. I do notice that upon revisiting it, I noticed more bits I liked than I remembered - but this might be down to hearing the album piece by piece as opposed to all in one go. As an album, it still ranks very low for me. The whole impression is that of a band that has lost its focus, purpose and direction, a lot of the heaviness sounds like shadow-boxing. It's a testament to Rush's quality that they still managed to produce a couple of memorable moments. There were four songs on "Hold Your Fire" I disliked, and only three of that category on "Test for Echo" (and in both cases, there is what I consider an absolute stinker - Rush only produced these two, as far as I'm concerned)... but on the other hand, I genuinely like five tracks from HYF, and there's only four on TFE. So, on the average both albums are kinda similar, but TFE just bores me; also, I do actually prefer the synth-and-reverb-laden coldness of the late 80s to the overly hot and indistinct guitar tones of the late 90s. Even the cover is a bit boring and for some reason, also distant and cold.
Carve Away The Stone: I'm on the fence with this one really. There are some nice patterns in the beat and the concept should work well, but the sections where the vocals are being delivered fall flat: "chip away the stone, chip away the stone", it's just dead. Ends up feeling like filler. Test For Echo overall: this album feels like such a crushing disappointment after Counterparts. I compare it to the previous album because for me they feel like a pairing insofar as being consecutive early-to-mid 90s albums with a harder-edged sound. There is a tangible basis upon which to base a comparison. That is where the comparison ends: on Counterparts Rush delivered an album that is top-to-bottom filled with quality. Five of it's tracks made my top 20. Here, Driven is the only track that makes my current top 40 and it is a minor placing at that. In fact, let's put this another way: both albums are eleven tracks in length. If I were to create a 'best of' those two albums, Driven would be the only track to oust anything from Counterparts (The Speed of Love). Test For Echo is an album that is badly lacking in highlights and it has a significant amount of middling material. Worse, it has at least two tracks that are outright awful. We've gone from an album of metaphorical phosphorescent waves on a tropical sea to songs about half of everything, net boys and girls and dogs pissing up fire-hydrants. I've been toying with where to place the album. From the off, I suspected it would be bottom-3 and it is. I would listen to this album more frequently than both Presto and Caress of Steel certainly. However, Presto is hamstrung by it's awfully thin production and objectively I feel it is a better album overall. Caress of Steel is an album by a young band developing it's sound and although I tend not to revisit it due to relative ambivalence towards it's two longer-form tracks, I can't fairly rate this 1996 album from a seasoned band as being a better or more interesting album. So bottom it sits, a significant reversal of fortunes from 1993's offering.
Although I don't dislike it as much as you, I have to agree. For me Counterparts was the band fired up and hitting the nails on the head. I don't dislike this album particularly, but it is kind of lacklustre and aside from a couple of standouts for me it is just kind of there.
"Carve Away The Stone" is another one like "Time and Motion" where I like the lyrics quite a lot but the music doesn't really connect. Oh, this one isn't bad at all but nothing about it jumps out at me and says "I'm GREAT! LIKE ME!". It's not one of the more memorable Rush album closers, although it is definitely better than "You Bet Your Life".
For me, it's Driven, Test For Echo, & Time And Motion in the top 3 then the rest are meh--3/5 stars. I like the continuation of the heavier sound from Counterparts. BTW, was there a reason for five 1-word titles? I've never seen an album with so many. ;-) Driven, Totem, Virtuality, Resist, & Limbo.
Since the thread is moving on to album number 20 next, a few thoughts on summing up Test For Echo. Overall, I think TFE is a big improvement over Counterparts. I wouldn't say that it's a great Rush album; merely a pretty good one. Unlike its predecessor, TFE doesn't sound like it's chasing trends or attempting to be musically fashionable; thus, it doesn't sound dated. The album doesn't contain any true classics - its best cut to my ears is "Driven", which is very good but still falls well short of my all-time Rush top 30. "The Color of Right" is the other real standout on this album. Several other songs are solid, including the title track, "Totem", and "Resist". A couple of songs have good lyrics but unmemorable music ("Time and Motion" and "Carve Away the Stone"), while one song has great music but poor lyrics ("Half the World"). Despite a few real missteps with the lyrics ("Half the World", "Dog Years", and "Virtuality"), I would say that, overall, TFE is the best Rush album lyrically since at least Presto. Peter Collins' production here is also much more listenable than it was on Counterparts, with that echoey boomy early 90s drum sound thankfully banished (perhaps also due to Kevin Shirley having been given wrong directions to the studio). We also have a return of some keyboards on this album, which improves the sound and my musical interest considerably. There is, of course, the one real out-and-out bad track in "Dog Years" (how is it possible that "Tai Shan" gets ridiculed more than this one?), but I'm not sure if it is much worse than "Stick It Out" was on the last album. I think, if given a choice, I'd rather be strapped down in a chair and forced to hear "Dog Years" for an hour on repeat vs. "Stick It Out". Sadly, it would be a long 6 years before a new Rush studio album would appear. Test For Echo tracks in order of preference: "Driven" "The Color Of Right" "Resist" "Totem" "Test For Echo" "Limbo" "Half The World" "Carve Away The Stone" "Time And Motion" "Virtuality" "Dog Years" Rating the Rush albums to this point: 1. Power Windows 2. Moving Pictures 3. Hold Your Fire 4. Permanent Waves 5. A Farewell To Kings 6. Signals 7. Caress Of Steel 8. Grace Under Pressure 9. Hemispheres 10. A Show Of Hands 11. 2112 12. Fly By Night 13. Test For Echo 14. Roll The Bones 15. Exit...Stage Left 16. Presto 17. All The World's A Stage 18. Counterparts 19. Rush Top 6 songs: 1. "Time Stand Still" 2. "The Big Money" 3. "Red Barchetta" 4. "The Spirit Of Radio" 5. "Xanadu" 6. "Subdivisions" Dropping out: None
All other things equal, the song that takes itself oh-so-seriously is always going to catch more heat than the one that is clearly just having some fun.
I know it gets hot in Tempe this time of year, but the heat must be doing strange things to your brain!
Carve Away the Stone: It's am okay track, lyrically. However, nothing spectacular musically and most certainly not the best album closer. I Still think 'Resist' would of been better to close the album out. It's been fun going over T4E. Like I said earlier, the first half of the album is pretty good that is unfortunately saddled by the mediocrity of the 2nd half. After 24 years, I've warmed up to the album as a whole, now that I realized I haven't skipped any tracks and yes, that includes 'Dog Years'... Anyway, it's one of those albums that has a nostalgic factor for me, since it was in rotation in my car's cassette deck during my college years. Brought to you by the letter R-r-r-r-r....
"Carve Away the Stone" For some odd reason, the opening riff reminds me of Asia's "Heat Of The Moment". Anyway, another song on this album that I like a lot. A fairly straightforward track, though it has a nice melodic theme and the instrumental/guitar solo section is pretty good as well. A nice way to finish off the album. __________________________ I've got to say it...TFE probably my favourite Rush album in a decade. As a whole, I think it has the strongest collection of songs, mainly in terms of melodic and contrasting ideas, lots of nice playing from the guys, and the sound is clean with a nice bottom end. I just enjoy listening to this one more than the others.
