Album Review: Rush, "Roll the Bones"

That resilient Canadian three piece, RUSH, are back amongst us with their umpteenth album Roll the Bones, and, as expected with these high tech perfectionists, they are not lacking in the quality control department.

For at least a decade or so Rush have been refining and updating their sound, yet without crassly and clumsily latching on to the latest fads and trends, and their new record sees them continuing in much the same vein. Moreover, Rush have flexed their musical muscle to greater effect, in contrast to their last studio album Presto. Whilst Alex Lifeson's guitar playing has, on occasions, a welcome grittiness to it.

The first track "Dreamline," with its burst of chiming guitar, hits you full in the face. This is driving, insistent rock at its best. Next there's the stately, widescreen appeal of "Bravado," before we hit the punchy title track, complete with an understated rap passage and some equally subtle, funky musicianship. Then it's on to "Face Up," taut and edgy with a real sense of urgency. "Where's My Thing?" is a sparkling instrumental, and while it's musically dexterous it doesn't make the mistake of getting bogged down in over-fussy arrangement or self indulgent playing.

Side two has Rush losing a little of their sharp focus (still impressive mind) on tracks like "The Big Wheel" and "Heresy." Still, they kick back into top gear with the emotive "Ghost of a Chance," the lyrics imbued with a poignant sense of romantic realism.

The complex arrangements and layers of cinematic sound that wrap up their song structures might not be accessible to some or leave others cold and indifferent, but rock music of this depth than quality is all too rare these days. Rush are worth persisting in. For Rush fans themselves, the vast majority should be more than pleased with this, the latest chapter in their long and distinguished career.

Grade: A-

Mark Liddell
Riff Raff
October 1991

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!