Artist: Rush
Label: Atlantic Records
Release: 1989
Rating: 3.5/5
“Presto” is the album where all the “former” Rush fans of limited musical breadth and enlightenment, who for that reason turned their backs completely on the band’s output between 1982 and 1987, found their excuse for the Rush “boycott”: with “Presto,” Rush supposedly started composing “proper, good” albums again, and so they rediscovered Rush. Hello? “Presto and a tea with rum, please,” said the old man, after a long battle against the vertical meters he finally came huffing and puffing up to the top of Rožnik.
“Presto” is the album with which Rush entered (let’s call it) their “fourth” period of music-making. After the production-driven build-up of a big synthetic sound that shaped the previous three albums, they decided to bring a bit more natural color back into their sound. The basic change is that Alex Lifeson’s guitar is again leaning toward playing guitar phrases by classic rock principles. A semi-acoustic, homey-sounding guitar riff has returned to the sound, and some of the songs even get a proper acoustic sonic fill from the guitar.
The keyboards are kept in the sound across the record, but this time they appear completely independent of the former dialogue with the guitar’s echo sustain collages, with which they co-shaped the bulk of the previous album’s melodic identity. This time the keyboards sit separately in the production, largely serving just to fill out the background and strengthen the record’s moods. In the choruses the guitar often steps aside completely, and then Lee’s vocal sits right in the middle between the colorful contrast of the keyboards and Peart’s drumming. As a singer with a unique, instantly recognizable, high melodic voice, he once again triumphantly cashes in on his position in the production, and on the emotional side successfully brings the desired feelings in the verses to life yet again. What’s interesting is that Peart keeps his snare drum fairly synthetic and higher-pitched, still noticeably controlled and therefore by no means a pretentious sound. The bass lines also get more life and natural color back, although in the production they keep a slimmed-down final polish.
So what we have here is an album with a pop art-rock production, which especially suits songs like the excellent semi-ballad The Pass, followed by Scars, Presto, Anagram (For Mongo), Red Tide, Hand Over Fist and Available Light. These songs come across as mildly poppy, with Lee’s vocal clearly in the spotlight, and its timbre brings a distinct touch of melancholy and drama into them.
Songs like the opener Show Don’t Tell, Chain Lightning, War Paint and Superconudctor, on the other hand, are more wound up this time around and carry the biggest responsibility for why we can see “Presto” as the album with which Rush entered their fourth period of music-making. They have an interesting contrast between guitar-heavy pre-choruses and the melodic pop charm of the chorus, where the guitar once again gladly gets out of the keyboards’ way entirely. Show Don’t Tell is the most decisive in putting the guitar back in the foreground of the new Rush sound. It’s placed at the start of the record to draw a clear line under the “Hold Your Fire” legacy. What’s more, in it the band signals that it’s bringing a bit more of its hands-on chops back to the new album, which clearly pay off in the middle section, where we run into Lee’s bass soloing, and the song is marked by a masterful enrichment of Neil Peart’s many rhythmic turns lying under the basic motifs. “Presto” has more witty drumming in the transitional parts of the songs, too. So the guys are bringing some complexity back to the album, but not for a second do they put it above the melodic compactness the trio faithfully follows in its execution.
The art pop charm stands out for its melodic polish most successfully in the choruses of Superconductor, Chain Lightning and the excellent closer Available Light. Songs like Scars and Presto, or the outro of Red Tide, keep the most ties to the “Hold Your Fire” legacy and, given that album’s production, would sound like lost moments from the previous record.
On “Presto,” too, the guys communicate with each other by the established, tried-and-tested recipe. The melodies of the basic motifs are clearly crafted, and the band keeps its songs compact despite bringing more complexity back to the new album. The songs are varied in motif and atmosphere, and the album, as is typical Rush tradition, carries a tremendously strong start with the triad of Show Don’t Tell, Chain Lightning and The Pass, and a highly vivid finish with Available Light, which stands out on the album, which is why the closing of “Presto” is one of its peaks. In the middle of the album, Superconductor definitely grabs the most attention from the rest of the songs, with a thrillingly bold contrast between the rock-inspired pre-chorus and the pop-rock melodicism of the chorus.
With “Presto,” Rush return to redefining their organic sound of rock-leaning guitar phrases. The keyboards, an important building block of the band’s sound throughout the eighties, retreat into the background, work separately and mostly just fill out the backdrop of the sonic picture. The production is still thinner and controlled, with clearly detailed contrasts between the building blocks of the sound and Lee’s centrally placed vocal, and despite the band’s occasional rock escapes, it keeps the overall pop rhetoric of the album’s pure art rock character, which only this band’s unique genius knows. Those rock escapes, though, will become more and more frequent on the band’s coming albums and, as such, will get more and more emphasis again.
Lineup
Geddy Lee – vocals, bass guitar, bass pedals, synthesizers
Alex Lifeson – guitar
Neil Peart – drums, acoustic and electronic percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Rupert Hine – keyboards, backing vocals
Jason Sniderman – keyboards
Production
Rupert Hine & Rush
Track list
1. Show Don’t Tell (5:01)
2. Chain Lightning (4:33)
3. The Pass (4:50)
4. War Paint (5:24)
5. Scars (4:07)
6. Presto (5:46)
7. Superconductor (4:47)
8. Anagram (for Mongo) (3:59)
9. Red Tide (4:30)
10. Hand Over Fist (4:10)
11. Available Light (5:04)
Album length: 52.11
