Unitron Power Windows is the eleventh studio album from hard rock/progressive rock band Rush. Going further and further down the synth-rock route, Power Windows shows the band remove some of the stark ominous vibe of the previous two synth-led albums, instead opting for a more pop-oriented sound. Not that this is a pop album, but it certainly fits in with the popular music at the time.

Don't worry though, this album still has most of the essential elements of a Rush album. Geddy Lee's bass slaps are especially excellent, adding a nice bounce to some of the tracks like the single "The Big Money" and "Marathon". While Lifeson does take a bit of a back seat as far as riffs go, his solos sing with so much feeling. Speaking of feeling, Power Windows features what I think are two of the most beautiful songs the band has written. These two songs are "Manhattan Project" and "Mystic Rhythms", the melodies from both the vocals and instruments are some of the most emotive the band has done. Peart's lyrics are strong on this one as usual, "Manhattan Project" in particular.

The only real issues with the album are that the keyboards can sound very dated on a few tracks and that the album isn't as consistently good as the previous two albums. There's not really any bad songs, but only about half the album really stands out and stays in my mind after listening. As far as dated keyboards and synth goes, "Grand Designs" is a good example of that. It's a fine song, but the dated synth can get a bit grating after awhile.

If you're a fan of the previous two Rush albums and/or 80's synth-rock/new wave, this album is well worth a listen. Like Hemispheres had exhausted the band's complex progressive rock sound, this album had exhausted their synth sound. Unfortunately, the band didn't realize that and ended up producing their first dud two years later. Hope you found this review helpful, feel free to comment!

Warthur Rush's Power Windows was a first for the band in one fatal respect - it was the first album since their debut in which their sound had not appreciably evolved or moved on compared to their previous album. Although I find their first few albums hit-and-miss and Hemispheres a bit of a stumble compared to the otherwise excellent run of albums from 2112 to Grace Under Pressure, I have to give Rush credit for growing and evolving their sound constantly over the course of their first ten albums. Power Windows, by contrast, sees them doing something they'd never done before in their career - playing it safe.

Essentially, if you've heard Signals and Grace Under Pressure, you've heard all the tricks the band have to offer here - it's yet another synth-heavy version of Rush's music with a focus on shorter songs. (Heck, Middletown Dreams is even - lyrically speaking - a rehash of Signals' Subdivisions). There is admittedly a slighter harder edge to it this time than Grace Under Pressure, which over time I've come to appreciate as giving it a slightly different style from its predecessor (whereas the compositional style has evolved sufficiently from Signals to save it being a rerun of that), but it feels like a smaller increment than usual for the band's evolution, like their movement forwards has started to decelerate.

Perhaps the most successful song here is Marathon, which at the halfway mark breaks out into a guitar-focused instrumental section which feels like the band are finding ways to work sounds they'd set aside for Grace Under Pressure back into the format without making it sound like a reversion. I'm reminded a little at points in Marillion of this; it's notable that Rush had toured with Marillion back in 1983, and then invited them to be support on the Power Windows tour, so perhaps there was some fruitful cross-fertilisation of ideas happening here.

In the end, I think Power Windows is still a very solid 1980s synth-prog album; it's not going to be to the taste of anyone who only likes Rush when they leaning on a hard rock or metal-adjacent sound, like in their late 1970s phase, but the same can be said for the two previous albums. I'd rank it below Grace Under Pressure, however; it's pretty evident that the synth era of Rush seems to start slowing down here, and that might be why I had been harsh on it before.

Modrigue ... Or how RUSH went down. One of their most cheesy albums.

The Canadian trio changed their musical direction roughly every 4 albums, managing to adapt, to evolve and to create their own style. "Power Windows" started a new musical direction period after "Grace Under Pressure". However, the magic and the progressive craft are now gone... No catchy heavy riffs, no epic moments, no futuristic synthesizer or no jazz-rock passages either. All tracks here sounds similar, poppy and commercial. The second half of the 80's has not been quite a favorable period for RUSH, as for most 70's progressive rock bands.

The Canadians will a little rectify their musical style four years later, with "Presto" and "Roll the Bones"...

siLLy puPPy The beginning of the great decline. I'm pretty much a fan of everything RUSH from the non-progressive hard rockin' debut album to the wonderful synth rock incarnations of SIGNALS and GRACE UNDER PRESSURE. However, this album percolates into my attention span simply because it is RUSH. If this was any lesser musical entity I wouldn't have the time of day to even entertain this mediocrity. Not saying this this is a horrible album as evidenced by my 3 star rating but geez, once you've gone to the musical heights that RUSH achived with many albums in the previoius ten years, how in the world do they possibly think this is an acceptable album even if they want to go the synth route? It simply boils down to the songwriting being extremely substandard and the classic conundrum of making money by appealing to the masses to making music that will appeal to the elite extreme musical literate. Apparantly RUSH felt they paid their dues to the latter and started the attempt to appeal to the former. It's an OK album. I find some of the tracks like “Big Money” and “Manhattan Project” to be acceptable but this album just reeks of mediocrity. A very sad moment indeed considering the artists here.