Music Banter - The Torture Chamber

Rush - Caress of Steel (1975)

http://i.imgur.com/f0nt8S3.jpg

Not entirely sure what Trollheart is trying to accomplish with this one. I might not be a diehard Rush fan or anything, but I gave 2112 and Hemispheres a shot earlier this year and dug them a lot more than I thought I would, so I think TH is going to be disappointed. ****, I've been bumping the **** out of Hawkwind's Warriors on the Edge of Time for a while now, and have suffered no adverse affects. Leave the torturing to Frownland. But let's do this...

http://i.imgur.com/AAyRW9X.jpg?1

1. Bastille Day - 4:40: Kinda reminds me of the riff to Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown". Loved the energy to that song, and this is pretty sweet as well. I've become far less annoyed by Geddy Lee's vocals, so they're not really torturing me, either. Yeah, this song kicks ass.

Suck it, Trollheart.

2. I Think I'm Going Bald - 3:41: Nice title. Nice blues riff. Sounds like another badass Rush song, even if they're clearly sucking at the dick of Zeppelin at the moment. I'm just going to assume that TH sent this to me because of the two long songs at the end of the album.

3. Lakeside Park - 4:11: More laid back Zeppelin worship. This could easily have been released with Robert Plant on vocals and nobody would know the difference. Might like this more than a lot of Zeppelin's more folky material TBH. Gives a nice bit of variety after the last two songs.

I was worried it was starting to drag a bit, but then I looked and saw the song was almost over, so it's all good.

4. The Necromancer - 12:32: I'll admit to being kind of dubious about the next two songs. "2112" off the next album was awesome, but some of the transitions between segments were awkward and arbitrary, so I can only assume that these will be even less polished experiments.

And we're starting with what I fear is a self-important melodic intro, which I assume will lead into some more rocking fare. Four minutes in and it basically sounds like white boy blues. I could also do without the goofy, spoken-word interludes.

There the harder blues riffs I was expecting, but I didn't think they'd be so Sabbath-y. Oh come on, stick with the Sabbath riffs for longer than a minute, cause the soloing is starting to ruin what was becoming a good vibe.

There we go. Back on track... for now.

Yeah, the way the music just became faster and more chaotic is reinforcing my expectations that this song would be unfocused. It's not bad, but the band were clearly still finding their feet as a prog band rather than a Led Zeppelin clone.

Arbitrary change to melodic strumming. And there's the goofy, voice over dude. Last few minutes are kinda dull. Not a terrible song or anything, but not terribly impressive either. Here's hoping they put more thought into the twenty-minute song up next.

5. The Fountain of Lamneth - 19:58: More strumming. Now this is the boring, folk side of Zeppelin I skip over. Let's move on please.

There we go. Only lasted a bit over a minute, so at least they have a bit more common sense than Zeppelin.

Never mind. The good stuff didn't last long before going back to folky dullery. And there we go again with the quick change! And now there's a drum solo! Make up your ****ing minds for more than two minutes.

This song isn't torturous or anything, but it's annoying that it doesn't know whether it wants to go soft or hard for any amount of time, and the arbitrary transitions leave it without much in the way of personality. It's not epic, or even particularly diverse, it's just random. Not even halfway through though, so maybe Rush will be able to snatch at least part of this song from the jaws of mediocrity.

Alright, the song just ended around the ten minute mark with the seagulls, and Rush are just pretending that it didn't. Not that the music ever flowed naturally enough for it to make a difference in the first place, but that short, silent interlude clearly broke the song in half.

Second half seems no better or worse than the first, but I'm pretty bored by this point, so I'm only kind of paying attention at this point. Still some nice Zep riffs here and there, though.

Alright, if you fade a song out like that, it just sounds like another ending. So as far as I'm concerned, this "song" is at least three songs jammed together with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

So that's over. Loved the first three songs, but the last two were intermittently boring and consistently frustrating, though never did I feel like I was tortured. Try harder next time, TH.

Edit: Just went back and listened to 2112 to see if my opinion on Rush had merely reverted and that was why I had little love for the two long songs, but no, "2112" is still awesome, and infinitely more memorable.