Artist: Rush
Label: Atlantic Records
Release: 2002
Running time: 67:20
Rating: 3/5
How do you hack an album out of raw rock when you’re Rush? With as little calculation and fussing over details as possible? “Vapour Trails” is the heaviest album in Rush history. It showed up after a long six-year wait following “Test For Echo” (1996). So what happened?
Rush had never taken such a long creative break in their career. The story behind it is that the band was on the verge of breaking up. The tragic figure in all this is drummer Neil Peart. The guy lost his family in less than a year. First his daughter died in a car accident, and not even a year later he lost his wife too, taken by cancer. A horrifying scenario. How do you get past that? Partly through music. Great fix.
“Vapour Trails” is the album with by far the most personal lyrics that ever came from Peart’s pen. Brilliantly twisted metaphors that get you thinking and set your imagination on fire. The lyrics are truly dark, even apocalyptic (Vapour Trails), and they refer to Peart’s tragedy (Ghost Rider, Sweet Miracle). The man realizes that you can’t fight the flow of fate. At certain points you have to give in, you have to accept. Victory or defeat (One Little Victory), and the rest is “taken care of” by the stars (The Stars Look Down). So, to some extent, we’re puppets of a higher power (ask an astrologer for more), and the course of our lives is laid out from the cradle (at least the most important parts), and it’s hard to walk against the storm, so you’re better off surrendering to it. Dark thoughts, from the blackest corner of the soul’s understanding. When you can’t go any further. Despair and persisting in despair, darkness behind you, darkness ahead of you (Ghost Rider, Freeze). It’s hard to see inside Neil Peart’s head, but the events he lived through in the period before recording “Vapour Trails” did, despite the tragedy, bring about a complete personal overhaul. A spiritual rebirth, if you like. The lyrics are exceptional and, with that added personal stamp, perhaps even the most honest in the band’s career. Secret Touch reveals that without sacrifice, without giving something up, you reap nothing. Without pain, there’s no love, and vice versa. Some things pull you helplessly into a whirlpool, so that you come out of it richer for a new experience, a test of maturity. Chilling, but true! That’s our road.
This time the other two guys gave the “wounded” Peart even more free space. They listened to him fully, like best friends, and enriched his lyrics with an outstanding contribution. Lee dropped keyboards from the album entirely. The verses reach a special power in their psychedelic feel, boldly dressed up with Lee’s layered vocals, especially in the choruses (Ceiling Unlimited). With his sensual approach, the man instantly and irreversibly sinks under the listener’s skin again, that’s how real Peart’s poetry sounds in Lee’s vocal treatment. Lifeson gave meaning to the hardship, despair, depression, helplessness, anger, escape and fear with raw, tightly wound guitar riffs that sound heavier than Rush ever had before. To underline the sharpness of the riffing, he deliberately steered clear of soloing. Lifeson didn’t forget the acoustic accent, though. That makes the sound fuller and even more organic, with the acoustics taking the lead over distortion only in the pre-chorus of the (this time) less interesting How It Is (the album’s title track right after it practically sings it into the ground in terms of expression). Peart’s drumming is more direct than ever, even though the Peart–Lee duo once again trade some extremely impressive, unique rhythmic contortions, the ones that make Rush so uniquely recognizable. The problem with this album is the one-dimensional production, which robs it of some needed dynamics and variety. The massive riffing at times harmfully buries the melodic lines of Lee’s bass, which means one of the band’s trademarks gets held back. In short, even though the songs are chopped out in a similar vibe, in “three-four” fashion, there’s still enough variety between them that they definitely deserved a bit more individual producer attention.
The songs on “Vapour Trails” can be very, very good and on the mark, or completely uninteresting. The album’s better moments are the opening One Little Victory, then Ceiling Unlimited right after it, then Ghost Rider with one of the most impressive guitar–drums–bass conversations on the album, which the title track comes very close to, as does Secret Touch, a new example of the trio’s melodic, punchy perfection (the bass line is later picked up, slightly differently, in the moving “personal prayer” song Sweet Miracle too). Earthshine, behind its massive curtain of riffs, is the album’s most avalanche-like song. Nocturne opens by borrowing the guitar trick from Ceiling Unlimited, then catches fire beautifully and completely spontaneously through the chorus. It’s not hard to hear on the album that undeniable touch of Rush spontaneity and the talented stringing together of vivid impulses from basic motif figures.
“Vapour Trails” is definitely not a Rush masterpiece. Nine songs would have been enough, not thirteen. You’ve probably figured out yourselves by now that the songs swing in quality, and that the album could have handled a lot more consistency and kept the reputation of Rush’s unique, highly talented expression, if the guys hadn’t crammed so many songs onto it. The seventies and eighties are gone, when Rush lined up albums with songs of equal quality. That swing in quality is felt most in the last two songs, Freeze and Out of the Cradle. You won’t miss them when you compare them with the rest of the album. The Stars Look Down is less interesting too.
“Vapour Trails” is the loudest, edgiest and most direct Rush album, and it brings a greater dose of spirited expression again compared to the less interesting “Test For Echo” (1996). It will appeal above all to young people who are into a smeared-out sound and to anyone unburdened by Rush’s past catalog, while thanks to its preserved trademarks it remains a new must for every true Rush fan. Its problem is perhaps precisely in spreading that one uniform, eruptive vibe over a far too long 70 minutes, and in the producer’s occasionally insufficient feel for the point of individual songs. Still, this is a special Rush album that shamelessly reveals the creative moment the (then) emotionally numb and disillusioned band was in, and it was clear that Rush would never repeat an album like this. It’s an exceptionally fine achievement, one that just lacks the elegance of most earlier Rush albums.
Lineup
Geddy Lee – vocals, bass guitar
Alex Lifeson – guitar
Neil Peart – drums, cymbals
Production
Rush & Paul Northfield
Tracklist
1. One Little Victory
2. Ceiling Unlimited
3. Ghost Rider
4. Peaceable Kingdom
5. The Stars Look Down
6. How It Is
7. Vapor Trail
8. Secret Touch
9. Earthshine
10. Sweet Miracle
11. Nocturne
12. Freeze
13. Out Of The Cradle
