Need to brush up on my listening to Rush post-Grace Under Pressure. I remember Hold Your Fire as being surprisingly good. Time Stand Still is one of their best songs, probably their best song, to these ears. Haven't heard it in a long time. Must give it a spin this weekend...
I bought this on release, but a HDTracks 2015 hi-rez purchase makes me appreciate this album much more, very enjoyable.
I see I posted earlier in this thread. Too lazy to find it to see what I said, but probably something along the lines of wanting to hand in my fan card. I recall this album as the one that had me absolutely fed up with their 80s sound. It did grow on me in time and I just recently rediscovered the song "Lock And Key" which really is a great song. And "Alex Lifeson's disease" my foot! He plays a great guitar solo in that song.
That's exactly why I prefer the 2015 vinyl for this album. Sean Magee really nailed the tonality. If you don't like it, there's always the ear-piercing WG CD. As for the album itself, it's probably my least favorite Rush album (as a whole). Some good songs on there ("Force Ten", "Open Secrets"), but I really dislike some of the cheesy "preachy" songs on there like "Second Nature" and "Mission" (nice sentiments, but really sappy). "Turn The Page" is pretty boring, and I do agree with Geddy about "Tai Shan".
Alex is all over this record, he's just not out front in the mix like he would be in a "power trio" approach that was temporarily abandoned.
Good album. Open Secrets is severely underrated. Still my least favorite 80's Rush album aside from Presto (which some might consider 90's).
This was, for a good long time, my second favorite Rush album behind AFTK. The strength of the six key tracks - Force Ten, Time Stand Still, Prime Mover, Mission, Turn The Page, High Water - for me always overcame the weaker links on the album. And while I've grown to appreciate some of those weaker links, they eventually brought the album down in stature for me with the passage of time. I reach for it less, and when I do, it is as a passing listen, not as a dedicated session. Permanent Waves, Presto and Grace Under Pressure all rose in my estimation (though the first of those was always high, it simply got higher), and now this album for me is more a nostalgic listen. That said... Time Stand Still and Mission are still two of the all-time best Rush tracks. Even if you don't like this era of Rush, it is hard to deny the power of the songwriting on those two. These are also the two tracks where the production on this album absolutely shines, especially on the HDTracks remaster, which uncovered a hidden orchestral part on the second chorus of Mission (I'm still not certain how that happened on a remaster, and not a remix). I don't miss Alex on this record. He's there, but in a much different way. I liked that about this era, even if the man himself got tired of it. It seemed he was willing to play to the song, and not dominate the song, which is what makes the VT and S&A albums so hard for me to stomach. There's texture and feel here, a lot of it. The only truly bad song is Lock and Key for me. It just doesn't work for me at all. Yes, I can even tolerate Tai Shan, because it feels like what I would have felt about a visit to China at that time - optimistic and absorbed. Some will malign this album as the nadir of an era where Rush went too far with the keyboards. I call it a high point in that experimentation.
I wouldn't malign HYF, but I think they went as far as they needed with Power Windows, which is a better album overall. HYF took the keys even further, for the most part to no good end. The great songs (Force Ten, Time Stand Still, Prime Mover, Mission) on HYF remain great, but the not-so-great stuff seems to get worse with each passing year.
In retrospect, they say they went too far with it, but at the time they said they accomplished what they set out to do. Of course the question after that became what next? I won't say the album is perfect, but I think it holds up fairly well.
Funny how our tastes differ - I really like "Lock and Key" and think it's one of the high points of the record, along with "Force Ten", "Mission" and "Turn the Page"! The rest are so-so for me, and I really can't stand "High Water" (what an earth were they trying to do there?). The orchestra on "Mission" first showed up on the Sector box, IIRC. It must have been muted on the original mix. Why they didn't use the same master as for the original release is beyond me.
I looked up more info on Mission, and you're right that it was the Sector set that it happened on. The explanation was that they were given the wrong tapes and no one recognized this until they release came out. There are only subtle differences on a few songs, but on Mission it is glaring. Personally, I think the orchestra is a nice touch, though it definitely took getting use to after 25 years.
More info from the HYF Sector mixes found here: New Rush 5.1 Releases (Sector 1, 2, 3 Boxsets) Sorry, I didn't go through all of the 32 pages to give proper credit to the poster. And, I can't recall if someone posted this earlier in the thread.
I really like this record and it is one of the Rush albums I return to a lot. In fact Signals, PW and HYF and probably my 3 most played. I loved their song based approach in the 80's and think Alex came up with some brilliant textural sounds and playing on these albums. I can't help wishing he's break out the big rack and the Gallien-Kruger amps again. I realise I may be alone in this ;-)
You're not alone. I much prefer his 80s sound to what he's employed since Counterparts. I always chalked it up more to the guitars than the rig though.
Got an original Canadian pressing of Hold Your Fire and wow does it sound terrible. Up to now I've been listening to my cassette which sounds great via my Nakamichi 505. The LP is so thin and small sounding. Its a good album albeit with some dated 80's production. A shame my cassette blows away vinyl.
Drop the last two tracks and those other 8 songs hold up well with the rest of the 80s output. The darn CD era of overstuffed albums began. Maybe move High Water to Presto and see how it fits... Tai Shan...yeah...
I really love Hold Your Fire. It's cool this thread just popped up because I dusted off my copy of HYF this past Sunday and gave it two spins. I love the textures on this record. Most of these songs exhibit Rush at their 80's use of synth best. The album still sounds great too. I know Tai Shan gets a lot of carp, heck I think even Geddy might be one to toss a little shade its way but I think it fits in well musically with the album. Maybe don't listen to those Peart lyrics so closely! Looking back on Rush in the 80's, I prefer HYF to Power Windows and Grace Under Pressure even though that album has a deeper resonance with my memories of that time. The reason is the sophistication of the synth work. Geddy's playing and the band's incorporation of that element into their sound peaked on HYF and would never return. With Presto there is the beginning of the leaner, more rock oriented Rush we would see in the first half of the 90's.
I'm sure there's tons of obscure releases from '87 I could name, but even two of the biggest albums of that year; Joshua Tree and Appetite for Destruction, have aged pretty well.
The songs are nowhere as near as good on HYF as they were on PW and GUP and I rate GUP as the first album when their writing really started to become inconsistent-Signals had a crack or two.
For me, Grace Under Pressure (GUP just doesn’t do it justice!) is a flawed masterpiece. Like you say, inconsistent songwriting. But the best songs on that album are my favorite Rush songs ever. And I still like the ones that aren’t so great, because everything on that album rates higher than 90% of HYF.
I listened to GUP and Power Windows last night. All three records I quite enjoy. They all feature excellent songwriting and playing, with a few bumps along the way, but very few when the three are considered as a whole. I need to listen to Presto again. I usually skip over Presto and go right to Roll the Bones and Counterparts. I have pleasant college memories of those two records. I'm curious if I'm just lost in the nostalgia of times past when skipping over Presto and remembering the two that follow as superior, much like I remember HYF as being preferable to other 80's Rush works. I still say given recent listenings that the keys work on HYF is the strongest with how it is integrated into the songs.
