Artist: Rush
Label: Mercury Records
Released: 1985
Rating: 3/5
“Power Windows” is the album where Rush finally polished up the synth-era sound of the eighties they’d started shamelessly developing with “Signals” (1982). It’s the obvious successor to “Grace Under Pressure”, with a seriously upgraded production (relatively speaking, by eighties standards, especially compared to what pop, new wave and art pop production could pull off back then). The sound is huge. The contrasts between instruments are cranked to the max, and the sonic collages are clean, clear and dynamic. Compared to its predecessor, the guitar sound is even sharper and even more devoted to riding that delay effect, and as such, in dialogue with the big, arena-sized synthesizer sound of the day (the basic building block of the big atmosphere on albums like this from that era), it co-creates most of the album’s melody and sound. Lifeson’s playing is pared down even further. On “Power Windows” the guy keeps retreating into reduced notes and an ever-greater reliance on simple few-chord riffs that make up the rich sonic backdrop. On the transitional parts, the motif-doubling dialogue between keyboards and guitar occasionally (just barely) recalls the tricks of their fellow Canadians Saga (though they sound completely uniquely designed), and the same goes for the type of production both bands were developing at the time.
With the sound scrubbed even cleaner, the production puts the bass line back in a more prominent spot, compared to how buried it was on “Grace Under Pressure”. So it’s once again doing the key job of bringing in extra melody, even though it gave up its organic stamp long ago. Rush didn’t pull this off on “Grace Under Pressure”, and they fixed that mistake with the “Power Windows” production. Alongside the compressed, thinned-out sound of Peart’s drums, which carry a big, voluminous reverb, the balance between the guitar-and-keyboard sound curtain, the bass line and the drums works ideally: well balanced, dynamically varied, richly voluminous and optimally used. Even though, as we mentioned, the former organic liveliness has been replaced by artificial tinkering with the gadgets of eighties studios. And that’s the point of reaching the same basic goal, only by different means. It proves that Rush learned a lot between 1982 and 1985, and on the back of that fresh experience they kept plugging holes in the production and successfully upgrading it from album to album, hitting the peak of the Rush “eighties synth” era sound on “Power Windows”. A commitment to high tones they didn’t stray far from on the follow-up “Hold Your Fire” (1987), either.
“Power Windows” is a considerably brighter sibling of “Grace Under Pressure” in terms of atmosphere, though it keeps that typical, well-known Rush art rock spirit of exploratory adventurism, with a pinch of dramatic unpredictability and quirky melodic combinations of lead motifs, and in building that dramatic moment, the crowning touch is Lee’s effectively melodic, clean vocal, which sounds mystically alluring, at once remote (alienated), yet always lived-in and homey (emotive).
The synthesizer makeover runs riot across the whole album. The Big Money, which opens the record, comes off downright annoying with Lee’s deliberate shouting of “Big Money” in the chorus. It’s the album’s punchiest, most direct art rock track. Once again a unique Rush album opener, comparable to nothing else, yet still typically Rush. What follows on “Power Windows” is the band exploring new musical dimensions and territories, dictated by new trendy challenges, while Rush naturally kept all of their musically expressive genius. The songs aren’t complicated. It’s also interesting that none of them really stands out, either in quality or in mood. For that reason, “Power Windows” ranks among the less interesting albums in the Rush discography. Although the songs run slightly longer than those on “Grace Under Pressure”, they feel even more compact and defined motif-wise. They stretch out in the middle instrumental sections as well as the outros. Parts, in other words, that can’t be missing from Rush’s musical expression. Parts that, despite the further minimizing of sound and style, stay interesting even for sound purists.
Rush’s eternal prog adventurism, crossed with the pop influence of the eighties, is triumphantly engraved on “Power Windows” into yet another completely new and distinctive musical experience called Rush art rock. With it, Rush fully caught the pop-sound trends of the eighties and co-created the best that the decade had to offer in rock music. At the same time, they kept all the uniqueness that let them survive on the musical map and earned them the awe of music critics and the cogs of the music industry that set the standards of rock popularity at the time.
Lineup
Geddy Lee – vocals, bass guitar, bass pedals, synthesizers
Alex Lifeson – guitar
Neil Peart – drums, acoustic and electric percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Jim Burgess – synthesizers
Ann Dudley – string arrangements
Andy Richards – keyboards
Production
Peter Collins & Rush
Tracklist
1. The Big Money (5:34)
2. Grand Designs (5:05)
3. Manhattan Project (5:04)
4. Marathon (6:09)
5. Territories (6:18)
6. Middletown Dreams (5:15)
7. Emotion Detector (5:10)
8. Mystic Rhythms (5:53)
Album length: 44.28
