RUSH — Signals (review)

Album · 1982 · Non-Metal

2/5 · 2014-03-14
arcane-beautiful

Now we enter the bottom of the cold dark barrell.

I really don't want to give Rush a bad review, but it's their own faults, for making this album

Now this album isn't terrible, it's okay but I wouldn't say it's good.

Having left the prog and technical side of things, Rush decided to make their songs sound like...the 80's basically, which I don't mind, I'm a massive fan of cheesy 80's synth pop bands, but I'm also a big fan of Rush, the reason being that they weren't an 80's synth band (if that makes sense).

Half of this album is substandard but a big enough fraction is terrible.

1. Subdivisions - I like the Genesis meets Spock's Beard like intro, with synths. The instrumental sections are quite cool. The chorus is ok, but it doesn't compare to early Rush choruses.

2. The Analog Kid - The riff still shows a lot of Prog. Very happy and upbeat rock song. I also think the chorus is quite good. Pretty cool chorus.

3. Chemistry - Very 80's synth soaked intro.The lyrics of the song don't make any sense and the chorus is pretty weak.The verses aren't that bad. They are trying way too hard.

4. Digital Man - Wow, what an amazing bassline throughout the song. This song isn't that catchy and to be honest the instrumentation is the only thing that holds the song together. Way too drawn out length wise. They're trying too hard to become an electro version of the police. It's not working for them.

5. The Weapon - Oh, part II of Fear. But the 3rd part of this song was made before the 2nd, I'm confused. The intro is quite cool. Another weak chorus.Alex Lifeson sounds really bored in this song, just letting a chord ring out for a while, they're not Oasis. The instrumental section is quite cool. There is nothing really interesting with Geddy's vocals. The ending sounds very rushed.

6. New World Man - This song is really good. The chorus is really good and overall the song is interesting.

7. Losing It - I like the intro. The violin is quite interesting. This song is really interesting and quite experimental. I like the instrumental asection with the question and answer with guitar and violin. This song is alot closer to good Rush.

8. Countdown - I like the build up in the intro. A wee bit weak, but overall I like the atmopshere.

CONCLUSION: Would have been quite good if some mistakes could have been plastered.

more than 2 years ago
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Colt wrote:

more than 2 years ago

lol :) You know me too well!

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

:-) diplomatic as ever Steve.

Colt wrote:

more than 2 years ago

This was passable for me, I have listened to it a number of times and a few of the tracks are better than average....but only just. They fell into an abyss of mediocrity after this that they never recovered from. I even succumbed to the hype that followed the release of Snakes & Arrows and bought the album believing that they had at last returned to form. Must be something wrong with peoples ears I would say.... and this from one of their biggest fans of the seventies and early eighties. How a band can produce masterpiece after masterpiece and then utter garbage is beyond me! All IMO and each to their own.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

To my ears "Signals" is a transition album, and I much prefer either their preceeding more progressive releases or the "all in" synth heavy successors. The woolly sound production doesn´t make my blood boil either.

voila_la_scorie wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I actually really like this album. I think it's the last of Alex's shredding for many years and I find the synthesizer provides some great melodies. "Analogue Kid" is one of my favourite Rush songs (out of a couple of dozen favourites that is). I actually wanted to provide my review of the album a few months back but at the time there was a disclaimer saying that I couldn't review a non-metal album. In truth, I even found "Grace Under Pressure" to be much better than I had expected. The real low end for me is "Hold Your Fire" which has only one song in my "couple of dozen favourites". No, there's not much metal on "Signals" but I still think Rush hadn't totally given up on their prog era here. For me this was the precipice they stood upon, dawning their 80's diving suits, before plunging into the synth morass below.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

It´s definitely not a favorite of mine either and considering that it´s the successor to "Moving Pictures" which IS my favorite Rush album, "Signals" is generally a very disappointing release. It´s Rush though, so I´d probably still rate it with 3.5 stars. Even when they release something sub par to their best material we´re still talking quality material.