As the 1980s begin to come to a close, so does Rush’s synth period in a big way with Hold Your Fire.
Following the success of Power Windows, the band took a short break after the Power Windows tour was complete on May 26th, 1986 at the Pacific Amphitheater in California before beginning work on their follow up album, Hold Your Fire. As a complete work, much like how Signals had it’s shortcomings and seemed dwarfed by Moving Pictures preceding it, Hold Your Fire suffers from a similar issue. Rush doubled down on their 80s pop synth rock project and yielded some flops and only a handful of songs that could be considered memorable from this phase.
Let’s start with the bad. Hold Your Fire marks the start of a slew of albums that would have a tremendous amount of filler material on them. According to this list of songs Rush has never played live, there’s a noticeable spike come Hold Your Fire with 4 of the album’s 10 songs never seeing live play time. This number is matched with their 1989 album Presto and only goes up through the 90s and into the early 2000s. One other thing worth noting is how few songs never got played live prior to Hold Your Fire. Even just about everything from Power Windows was played at least once except for ‘Emotion Detector’. Call it the end of the band’s quality songwriting or fatigue from the era, but regardless, Hold Your Fire marked a downward musical spiral that only mildly seemed to rebound around Snakes and Arrows.
Even the music listening community expressed their disappointment in this album. Hold Your Fire was the first album since Caress of Steel in 1973 not to go platinum upon release. The album only peaked at number 13 on the Billboard 100, the first album since Hemispheres to rank under top 10. Hold Your Fire was certainly a low point for the band.
Oh – and there was the mess that was titled ‘Tai Shan’.
Now let’s tackle the good. Rush has never been considered a pop band and even the music produced in the last 7 years or so by the band is pop at first past but ultimately Rush doing pop as they only know how to do a genre based on simplicity and reaching the biggest audience possible. Hold Your Fire has some very good pop hits and some quality songs that did survive past the tour supporting this album. ‘Time Stand Still’ is the band at their most poppy, reducing musically and lyrically elaborate songs to a 4 minute verse-chorus-verse song with a simple message about time flying by. Plus, this song featured a rare guest appearance from another singer, Aimee Mann, sharing vocal duties with Geddy on the song’s chorus. ‘Force Ten’ showcases the best some leftover quality musical arrangement from Power Windows and some very intricate bass playing. ‘Lock and Key’ is a dark, epic weaving more dexterous bass playing with deep synths and Alex’s chrome-plated guitar and ‘Turn the Page’, like ‘Marathon’, gets your blood moving and invoking a feeling like you the listener can do anything with it’s upbeat groove and shiny chords. Plus – there’s Alex’s solo at the 3:00 minute mark and that bass groove supporting it. A rare moment where the trio sounds like a trio again without any elaborate overdubs to make the arrangement sound bigger and more elaborate than it really is.
Overall, Hold Your Fire still looks like the bomb that it was when it hit the public back in 1987. The highlights were overshadowed by the lackluster, filler songs and the band very clearly sounds tired of the keyboards and 80s sounds. This album is worth a spin or two, but none will stop you from skipping over the fluff. Unfortunately, you’ll be skipping over a lot of tracks.
Hold Your Fire (1987)
- Force Ten 4:31
- Time Stand Still 5:09
- Open Secrets 5:38
- Second Nature 4:36
- Prime Mover 5:19
- Lock and Key 5:09
- Mission 5:16
- Turn the Page 4:55
- Tai Shan 4:15
- High Water 5:33
Michael J. Ade | Assistant Engineer |
Scott Alexander | Unknown Contributor Role |
Van Azzoli | Executive Producer |
James Barton | Engineer |
Jim Barton | Engineer |
Liam Birt | Executive Producer |
Ken Blair | Assistant Engineer |
Jim Burgess | Synthesizer |
Peter Collins | Arranger, Producer |
Philippe Cusset | Mixing Assistant |
Pye Dubois | Composer |
Jon Erickson | Reproduction |
Andrew Jackman | Arranger, Conductor |
Brian Lee | Mastering |
Geddy Lee | Bass, Bass Pedals, Composer, Guitar, Guitar (Bass), Keyboards, Pedals, Synthesizer, Vocals |
Martin Lee | Assistant Engineer |
Alex Lifeson | Composer, Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric) |
Bob Ludwig | Mastering |
Aimee Mann | Guest Artist, Vocals |
Neil Peart | Composer, Drums, Electronic Percussion, Percussion |
Andy Richards | Keyboards, Synthesizer |
Rush | Arranger, Primary Artist, Producer |
Reynold Swan | Assistant Engineer |
Hugh Syme | Art Direction |
Glenn Wexler | Photography |
William Faery Engineering Brass Band | Unknown Contributor Role |
Williams Fairey Brass Band | Horn, Unknown Contributor Role |
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