In 10 years, Rush turned from a Led Zeppelin cover band into a progressive U2 sounding project.
I’ll be perfectly honest. I did not like Grace Under Pressure for a number of years. Back when I was getting into Rush many years ago, this album just lacked…everything to me. None of the songs, with the exception of ‘The Enemy Within’ seemed to have any real punch or grit to them. They all felt softer and more watery and lacked that razor sharp cut that the band’s earlier albums had and even Signals had to an extent. Grace just seemed too 80s for my palette and as a result, I simply passed on it for a long time (ironically, Power Windows was one of my other favorite Rush albums – go figure.)
But now some years have passed and I’ve given Grace Under Pressure another look and frankly, I like it a bit more than I did some years ago.
Signals felt like the band was playing with how to integrate Alex’s guitars and Geddy’s keyboards together and still have the combination make musical sense. Some songs, namely the songs I brought up on the last album that felt lacking or incomplete were the most standout culprits of these experiments.
Grace Under Pressure, however, feels like the band was done experimenting with guitars-plus-synth and now got it down to a more refined state. Looking at the album as a whole piece of music, the album certainly sounds more complete than Signals did. Each song fits with the one prior and leads nicely into the one after it. The balance of hard rocking guitars and bass works nicely with synth nicely whether serving as a lead or as a supportive instrument.
Lyrically, Grace Under Pressure is the Rush album of the synth era that is really worth paying attention to. There is some very personal stuff going on in each of these songs both for Neil and Geddy. Peart described the meaning behind ‘Distant Early Warning’ in an interview with Jim Ladd from Innterview in 1984:
“The main theme of the song is a series of things, but that’s certainly one of the idea[s] (our very tense world situation), and living in the modern world basically in all of its manifestations in terms of the distance from us of the threat of superpowers and the nuclear annihilation and all of that stuff, and these giant missiles pointed at each other across the ocean. There’s all of that, but that tends to have a little bit of distance from people’s lives, but at the same time I think it is omnipresent, you know, I think that threat does loom somewhere in everyone’s subconscious, perhaps. And then it deals with the closer things in terms of relationships and how to keep a relationship in such a swift-moving world, and it has something to do with our particular lives, dealing with revolving doors, going in and out, but also I think that’s generally true with people in the modern world where things for a lot of people are very difficult, and consequently, work and the mundane concerns of life tend to take precedence over the important values of relationships and of the larger world and the world of the abstract as opposed to the concrete, and dealing with all of those things with grace. [more of the song is played] And when I see a little bit of grace in someone’s life. Like when you drive past a horrible tenement building and you see these wonderful pink flamingos on the balcony up there, or something like, some little aspect of humanity that strikes you as a beautiful resistance if you like.”
Wrap your head around that one.
’Red Sector A’ tells about a protagonist in a prison camp, an experience Geddy’s grandmother recounted while in a Nazi camp. ‘Afterimage’ is about the emotional loss of a friend and the mental and emotional backlash that comes with the recovery and ‘The Enemy Within’ part 1 of the Fear series, covers fear in the human body.
From a bass playing perspective, Grace Under Pressure is more focused on the keyboard and musical arrangement than captivating bass playing. The addition to Geddy’s Steinberger L2 bass takes away the distinct bite and articulation that Geddy’s playing has been so known for for since Rush’s incarnation. To be fair, Geddy even said that the Steinberger was an experiment. At the time, the Steinberger worked so well with all of his keyboards because when he went to turn around, the bass wouldn’t smack into any of his gear.
While Signals had its faults periodically and felt like an experiment in new musical territories, Grace Under Pressure feels more akin to Permanent Waves or Moving Pictures. The completeness of each song lyrically and musically makes for a rewarding listening experience. Though the album lacks that signature Geddy bass playing, on the whole, it’s still a very rich listen.
Grace Under Pressure (1984)
- Distant Early Warning 4:56
- Afterimage 5:04
- Red Sector A 5:10
- The Enemy Within 4:33
- The Body Electric 5:00
- Kid Gloves 4:18
- Red Lenses 4:42
- Between the Wheels 5:44
Credits on Grace Under Pressure:
Jim Burgess | Programming, Synthesizer |
Roberto Di Gioia | Assistant Engineer |
Jon Erickson | Pre-Production Engineer, Unknown Contributor Role |
Peter Henderson | Engineer, Producer |
Steve Kleinberg | Design |
Geddy Lee | Bass, Composer, Guitar, Guitar (Bass), Keyboards, Producer, Synthesizer, Vocals |
Alex Lifeson | Composer, Guitar, Producer, Synthesizer |
Bob Ludwig | Mastering |
Paul Northfield | Programming, Synthesizer |
Frank Opolko | Assistant Engineer |
Neil Peart | Composer, Drums, Electronic Percussion, Percussion, Producer |
Rush | Primary Artist, Producer |
Hugh Syme | Art Direction, Paintings |
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