Rush - Permanent Waves (1979)

A delightfully fast hammer-on/pull-off filled guitar riff, followed by the drums which come in with a crash and quickly move into an off time poly rhythmic cacophony that cascades into a train wreck that soon converges into a slowed down groove that picks right back up and enters into The Spirit Of Radio: Track one off Permanent Waves.

This first track is best described as 'the cure for the monday's'! For me at least...but it's a song I've definitely heard before on the radio and enjoyed it then, but I'm in love with it now!  Even the little reggae breakdown section near the end of the tune.

This whole album hit me somewhat differently than previous albums.  With Permanent Waves, I think Rush have changed up their game a bit, but thankfully they haven't abandoned the thing that makes them great (read: amazing musicianship). Everything is still rife with multi-movement songs and parts that make me say "there's no way in Hell I could ever hope to play that" but there's a lack of the side spanning epic and the song lengths seem to have evened out between the 5-8 minute mark (with the exception of the last song on the album "Natural Science" which clocks in at about 9 1/2 minutes.)

While still heavy on the complex musicianship, I would actually say that this is the most straightforward Rush album I've heard since their first few albums.  It would definitely make a great jumping off point for anyone looking to get into this great Canadian band.

I give Permanent Waves a recommendation of 9/10.  Permanent Waves was recorded in September-October 1979 at Le Studio in Morin Heights, Quebec and was again produced by Rush and Terry Brown and spawned the singles "The Spirit of Radio" and "Freewill".



****I find I'm starting to really have a hard time writing review after review of the same band's music, as I find I pretty much have the same thing to say over and over.  The tricky part is that with the idea to review every album from 1974 - present may have been an overly ambitious undertaking along with being in 3 bands, doing a weekly podcast and contributing reviews and occasional articles to my home base website http://www.commaerror.com/ in addition to working a full-time job.  As such, I will be taking an indefinite hiatus from my journey to Rushification, but will be back hopefully before the snow melts with a review of Rush's 8th Studio album 'Moving Pictures', which features the most recognizable Rush tune to date: "Tom Sawyer"

Hope to see you all soon Kiddies!