Warthur The whole of Rush's synth period took a good while to grow on me, and whilst Signals and Grace Under Pressure were able to win me over comparatively quickly, it's only lately that I've really warmed to Power Windows and Hold Your Fire, and Hold Your Fire is certainly the one I've warmed to least.

Power Windows was at the end of a day a solid album where it felt like they were beginning to repeat themselves as far as their post-Signals sound went, but they were still able to pull out a few more tricks here and there to keep things fresh. By comparison, Hold Your Fire comes across as a formulaic Rush-by-numbers album from their mid-1980s synthesiser era - and the fact that any Rush album could be called "formulaic" illustrates the magnitude of the problem.

It's still an entertaining enough release, but for the most part what's good about it is also what was good about the three previous studio albums - it's not bringing much new to the table which we haven't heard before. Some sections of Time Stand Still are downright repetitive - a word I'd never have applied to any prior Rush song.

At its best, Hold Your Fire manages to attain this chilly, cybernetic 1980s sheen, a combination of futuristic production methods and deft composition creating an icy, spacey aesthetic which feels very much of its era (in a good way). Then again, even that is something which they did better on Grace Under Pressure. It's good if you like Rush's synth phase - and I do - but probably the least of the studio albums from this era.

siLLy puPPy This album should really be re-titled “Hold Your Creativity” since despite a whole bunch of guest stars adding their input to it seems like a whole lotta filler to me. I also vote that they repackage it and instead of the three red dots on the cover they should be tomatoes being thrown at the faces of the three members (the cute pics of them with their hip new wave hairdos in the liner notes would do nicely). I suspect at this point that their fan base who was so patiently waiting for another at least decent album again were ready to pull plug on their support. In fact they did just that. This album saw a huge decline in sales which was the thunderbolt that caused RUSH to tone down the synths on their following album.

HOLD YOUR FIRE is their 12th studio album and one of the weakest IMO. I find the first three tracks tolerable and the rest absolutely horrendous and tolerable isn't good enough for a band with this much talent. Listening to this I can only wonder what planet RUSH was living on at the time. I know that they were doing what they wanted and were experimenting with ideas that all the members had wanted to follow, but I can only wonder WHY these particular ideas that they seemed to put so much into to make happen sound so, well, awful. Another good title for this would be HOLD YOUR PURCHASE. Save your precious shelf space for something worth hearing. I'm adding a star just for their boldness in experimenting otherwise this is a 1 star album musically speaking.

progshine The 80's Rush is a 8/80 situation, love it or hate it. I on the other hand prefer to sit on the fence, I don't hate and I don't love. Every situation is different. When the band decided to go deep into new directions after Signals (1982) each album was deeper into the keyboards 'drama' - as Alex Lifeson would say - and the results vary from album to album.

Grace Under Pressure (1984) is a weaker album, Power Windows (1985) their best of this phase and Hold Your Fire (1987) a weak one again. But one thing must be said, even when Rush is weak they are above the medium!

On Hold Your Fire (1987) keyboards are everywhere and you have to really dig into the album's sound to find Alex's guitars. Geddy Lee's amazing bass playing is still here, Neal Peart's lyrics too. Tracks like 'Force Ten', 'Time Stand Still' (with the wonderful Aimee Mann) and 'Turn The Page' prove that.

Unfortunatelly the albums also have tracks like 'Tai Shan' and 'High Water' that are just forgetable. The rest of the material is ok, but not that very attractive.

Rush wouls release one more album in the 80's and caputure their synth phase with a live album before going to a new era once again.