RUSH — Presto (review)

RUSH — Presto album cover Album · 1989 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Warthur
After Hold Your Fire and A Show of Hands, Rush realised they'd pushed their synthesiser-dominated post-Signals sound as far as it would go and it was time to shake things up. Presto sees them scaling back the use of synthesisers dramatically - restricting them to a few textures here and there - but though the return to guitars-bass-and-drums is welcome and refreshing, they aren't quite out of the 1980s yet.

In particular, Neil Peart's drum sound has a very dated sound to it (he definitely isn't banging on cereal boxes, you can't pull off some of the technical tricks he does here on those, but you might be fooled at some points).

In terms of the songwriting, what we have here is not a full-throated return to the ever-memorable and exciting Rush of Moving Pictures or A Farewell to Kings so much as an attempt to make an album using Hold Your Fire-era songwriting practices using Permanant Waves-era instrumentation. It's a little change, but a refreshing one after the sometimes sterile sound of that album; I wouldn't call the album brilliant, too many of the songs blend into each other a little, but I would say it's the point where the course correction starts to kick in.
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Tupan wrote:
1 year ago
Meh. I think this is a mediocre release. Dull songwriting with few highlights (The Pass and, maybe, Superconductor).

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