Rush Album: “Permanent Waves”

Permanent Waves photographs Rush at the perfect moment--still young and hard-rocking but, six years after their recording debut and the requisite dues-paying of long tours, wielding razor sharp progressive songwriting experience melded with tremendous technical skills.

Yes, this album "only" has six tunes, but they are all richly crafted. There's no filler to be found on this album. Rush at this point had evolved beyond doing space-rock concept albums, but while they were admittedly moving to mildly more radio friendly songwriting, they still liked fairly long songs. Even these, however, were skillfully pared down to the essentials, centered around cohesive lyrical ideas that allowed for stretching-out musically. Cases in point: Freewill, Jacob's Ladder, and especially the intense "Natural Science" (don't let the bland title dissuade you from enjoying the full force of the trio wash over you). Even the most commercial tune on the album, "The Spirit Of Radio," is an instrumental workout that also radiates the sincerity of redoubtable musicians who are hardly "selling out."

This album resembles Hemispheres in the mind-boggling *huge* sound conjured up by only three people on the traditional guitar/bass/drums. Part of this is because Geddy's bass and Neil's drums are equally kinetic but more importantly synced up so deeply on rhythmically difficult passages. It's also because Alex chased down some of the hugest analog guitar sounds I've ever heard, a real benchmark even today. Synths are usually relegated to background pedal points and uncluttered atmospherics that subtly fill out the upper sonic reaches. The guest piano added by long-time album cover artist Hugh Syme on the ballad "Different Strings" is a perfect counterpoint in texture, a respite before the force of "Natural Science," and an example of how deft use of space paradoxically adds density. Not to mention the fact that the tune--lyrics and all--is a bit of a rarity, written by Geddy in a display of matured sophistication (usually it's Neil who writes the lyrics while the other two concentrate on the music).

Moving Pictures, the other "peak" Rush album in the Hemispheres-Permanent Waves-MP period, is considerably darker by comparison to this bittersweet yet warm, probing, mature masterpiece. And it is a welcome example of the remasters, which have generally greatly improved the presence and warmth of all the Rush catalog, where applied. To me, Permanent Waves is the perfect "summer" album (welcome any time of year!), with a great overall groove and blend of musicianship that can't help but get the blood flowing, or make a road trip pulse just a little bit faster. As a refined, yet powerful and intriguing harder rock that not only stays with you past adolescence but also helps you reminisce with energetic warmth, this is it.

This album marked the transition between old Rush (Hemispheres, long songs, sci-fi lyrics) and new Rush (Moving Pictures, shorter songs, more mainstream lyrics). In turn, it ends up having the best of both worlds. For example, the great opening combo of Spirit of The Radio and Freewill gave a taste of what was to come on Moving Pictures with Tom Sawyer, Limelight, etc. And Natural Science was a sort of mini-epic comparable to (and actually better than) Hemispheres. Those three songs are absoulte classics, but Jacob's Ladder is nearly as good, and Different Strings and Entre Nous are about as close as Rush ever got to a ballad, and they are both adequate songs. Geddy arguably turns in his best performance ever on bass here (with the possible exception of MP), and, the lyrics are, of course, excellent (especially Natural Science with it's usage of tide pools as a metahpor for the human race in a sort of future Utopia). Overall, just an excellent album.

What can I say take one of Rush's greatest album's master it to a Gold Disc...Only greatness can happen! The sound it crisp, clean and clear. There is actually a noticeable difference between this and my older disc.

Welcome addition to my Gold Disc Collection.

I'd still love to see a gold disc of Hemispheres someday!

Permanent Waves has arrived (mine is stamped with #00398 in gold lettering - sweet!) and has gone through the process - A/B-ing with the 1997 remaster and original CD release - and the conclusion is what I expected. Audio nirvana. The latest Mobile Fidelity offering blows away any previous CD version of Permanent Waves, plain and simple. The soundstage is much, much wider and fuller, the sound is clean and crystal clear. I won't say it's a new album in the hands of MoFi - it's simply the album as it should have been long ago. Why does it take these guys to make music sound the way it should?

As for that new packaging style, the mini-LP replica style, it's beautiful. I'll always miss the cool and smart Lift-Lock cases, but these mini-LP replicas are very nice. But . . . and unfortunately there has to be a "but" . . . for some very strange reason, while Mobile Fidelity focuses so much time and energy recreating the original packaging, with nice, sharp (if a bit dark) images used for the cover and all photos, they really fudged it when it comes to the lyrics book cover, which is the same as the album cover. Instead of being the same crisp, sharp image, it is a murky, blurry, off-color red - yet all the text is perfectly clear, meaning they actually chose a blurry picture (it's not a bad print job). Truly baffling - but it's relatively minor when everything else is so nice.

Six stars for the music and remastering, one star deducted for the fumbled image choice. We're paying nearly $30 for these things - we deserve *everything* to be top-notch. They very nearly got it. Hopefully this won't occur in the 2112, Moving Pictures, and Signals MoFi reissues that will be coming out over the next year or so.

Rush said goodbye to the sci-fi tales, the ten-minute epics and the complex arrangements for a more commercial, radio friendly sound, with successful results. A change of decade bought a change of approach in their music, with lyrics that the man in the street can relate to, the right to choose ("Free Will"), the communication barrier ("Entre Nous") and the environment ("Natural Science"). Opener "Spirit of Radio" was a hit on this side of the Atlantic, and unbelievably can still be heard on radio today (albeit not very often) Had I reviewed this without hearing "Moving Pictures", I would probably have given it 5 stars. "Pictures" is in every aspect better than "Waves" and is probably the best rock album ever made (check my review), but this record still stands out on its own. Worth purchasing.