Utter failure or diamond in the ruff? Depends who you ask. But one thing is for sure: this is definitely the boldest, rawest, most honest album in the entire Rush discography.
Caress of Steel was released a few months later the same year as Fly by Night. Fly by Night was February and Caress of Steel was September of 1975. Upon release, the album was a massive flop upon release and turned many young Rush fans away from the band. The label was not a fan of it, many of the bands including KISS, that had befriended the band during the band’s earlier tours didn’t like or ‘understand the album’. The result was the band playing smaller clubs again and opening rather than headlining. Neil recalls the tour in support of Caress of Steel as the Down the Tubes tour:
On the surface, the band’s previous works and Caress mark the first radical shift in the band’s songwriting. A shift away from quick rock songs into detailed, multi part musical epics. To some, this album was flat out missing it’s mark and that the music was far too ambitious for the audience that they had reached with their other albums. Others believe that this album was a needed experiment and is more of a diamond in the ruff that aged better than any other Rush album. Depending on who you ask, you’re going to get a different answer. I personally think it’s within the top 5 best Rush albums but, again, that’s me.
Now, let’s take a closer look at this album.
The first song on the album, ‘Bastille Day’ showcases more of the detailed writing of Neil Peart but in a smaller, less musically extensive package. The focus of the song is a re-tell of the storming of Bastille during the French Revolution and the overcoming of the people over oppression. It’s a rich story and the music that carries the story is very much rock Rush: hard, in your face riffs with Geddy’s wailing vocals serving as the battle cry of those storming the gates in the story.
The second song, ‘I Think I’m Going Bald’ is a throwback to 1974 Rush. Rocking riffs and the lack of lyrical depth are this songs shining points for those who were growing nostalgic for the blues rock Rush time. According to one source, the song was penned for Kim Mitchell, the frontman of the band Max Webster and a friend of the band. The song itself was meant to be an homage to the KISS song ‘Going Blind’ where the main character of the KISS song comes to a similar revelation: he thinks he’s going blind.
‘Lakeside Park’ is the last song under 4 minutes on Caress of Steel. In the context of the album, two rock epics on one end and two throwback Rush rock tunes on the other, ‘Lakeside Park’ feels rather forgettable and sandwiched in the awkward musical middle on an already bizarre album. Musically, it’s a quieter song that rekindles memories of earlier softer Rush songs ‘Making Memories’ or ‘In the End’. The hook is nothing special in ‘Lakeside’: “Lakeside Park/Willows in the breeze/Lakeside Park/So many memories/Laughing rides/Midway lights/Shining stars on summer nights”. Musically and lyrically this song falls flat and the band seems to feel the same way since the song was never played again after the A Farewell to Kings tour in 1978.
The last two songs on the album, ‘The Necromancer’ and ‘The Fountain of Lamneth’ are the highlights. These were the songs that confused and polarized Rush fans and bothered record label personnel and marketing departments. ‘Necromancer’ takes up the remaining space on Side A and the B side of the record is consumed entirely by Rush’s first massive epic, ‘The Fountain of Lamneth’, clocking in at 19:57 – only a few seconds shorter than their classic ‘2112’ at 20:34.
First, let’s look at ‘The Necromancer’. What exactly the influence of the song is is neither confirmed or unconfirmed by an official source close to the band, but devout fans of the band’s music believe that the character of the Necromancer in the song is based off of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings series. The characters of the 3 travellers are supposed to represent Sam, Frodo and Gollum. Others believe that the 3 travelers are actually Geddy, Alex and Neil (‘three travelers, men of Willowdale…’) and the whole song is a retelling of their travels and experiences on tour looked at as if it were some Tolkin-esque epic tale.
The opening introduction of the song (which is Neils’s voice pitched down as one fan found out by speeding the section of the song up, revealing the young voice of Neil circa 1975) sets the dark and ominous tone for the song. As the narration fades out, a wash of backwards Pink Floyd-inspired backwards guitars and atmospheric musical work fill the space. As the song progresses, the atmosphere fades out and gives way to a into rocking groove at around the 5 minute mark. What makes this section noteworthy is that Alex’s guitar isn’t overdubbed during his solo. The listener hears the band as the trio in their truest guitar/bass/drums arrangement. No fancy studio work or elaborate overdubs. Just 3 instruments going at it – warts and all. Moreover, you can hear how much space there is musically when the guitar stops playing rhythm and the bass is left entirely to fill the remaining musical space. The resulting recording is a very clear depiction of Geddy’s Rickenbacker in 1975.
The last song on this album is the band’s longest song at this point in their career: ‘The Fountain of Lamneth’. The song is broken up into 6 distinct parts:
- In the Valley
- Didacts and Narpets
- No One at the Bridge
- Panacea
- Bacchus Plateau
- The Fountain
Part 1, In the Valley, begins the epic with a gentle acoustic-and-vocal duet from Geddy and Alex. It’s this part that sets the musical stage: a gentle, sun-bathed region somewhere in the wood and our song’s hero getting ready to embark on this musical journey for what is (allegedly) the fountain of youth. Just as quickly as the listener is taking in the feelings of relaxation, the listener is now smacked over the head with drums, electric guitars and the full force of Geddy’s Rickenbacker. The song continues to race forward before jerking the listener back into the feelings of relaxation established within the first minute of the song.
By the way, we’re not even past the 2:30 mark at this point. Already we’ve been relaxed, woken up, forced forward and relaxed again.
Even the lyrics reflect these jerking musical changes. During the first acoustic section, Geddy sings:
I am born
I am me
I am new
I am free
Look at me
I am young
Sight unseen
Life unsung
During the second acoustic section he sings:
Yet my eyes are drawn toward
The mountain in the east
Fascinates and captivates
Gives my heart no peace
The mountain holds the sunrise
In the prison of the night
‘Til bursting forth from rocky chains
The valley floods with light
During the first hard rock section, Geddy sings:
My eyes have just been opened
And they’re open very wide
Images around me
Don’t identify inside
Just one blur I recognize
The one that soothes and feeds
My way of life is easy
And as simple are my needs
Lyrically, Geddy reflects the feeling of awakening the character is going through in the song. As a listener, you were relaxed, maybe even a little sleepy between the gentle lyrics and soft acoustic guitar. Now you’re awake at the first strum of the electric guitar and thud of the kick drum.
By the last section of lyrics before breaking into Part 2, we now know what we’re in for: the story of the Fountain of Lamneth:
Living one long sunrise
For to me all things are new
I’ve never watched the sky grow pale
Or strolled through fields of dew
I do not know of dust to dust
I live from breath to breath
I live to climb that mountain
To the Fountain of Lamneth
Part 2, Didacts and Narpets, is the first real Neil Peart drum solo we experience with him filling the seat as Rush’s drummer. A blistering barrage of toms, snare and kick drum fill up just over 2 minutes of song time before cutting back into a slowly building rock daydream with Part 3, None at the Bridge.
None at the Bridge feels and sounds like the most ‘meaty’ part of ‘Fountain’. This portion of the song rises and falls in gentle swells without the herky-jerkyness of In the Valley while still keeping the listener feeling attached to the song. Whether it’s the combination of relaxed, gently pushing tempo combined with the familiar rock chords and arrangement that we’ve seen before on Fly by Night that makes this part so quietly intense or something else entirely before breaking into Alex’s soaring solo around the 8 minute mark, it’s this part of the song that feels like it was the most coherent of the 6 parts.
Part 4, Panacea, sounds like it could have been a Led Zeppelin song in another life. It feels like it could have been an alternate version to the opening of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or a standalone song nestled somewhere in the lower end of Led Zeppelin 3 towards the end of the album. It’s around this time that the listener should notice a pattern going on here with this song: soft – loud – soft – loud – soft and so on. The song builds up, rushes out from the cave, hits you over the head with a bat with pure rock and roll energy and then scurries back in to the cave leaving you dazed and confused but strangely relieved waiting for more to come.
Part 5, Baccus Plateau, again, returns to the rock energy from Part 3. Again, this portion feels like it could have been written by any of the band’s contemporaries including Kansas, Boston, Zeppelin even the Who if they were under a sedative. Part 5 returns to that triumphant feeling guided entirely by Alex’s guitar work that powers through unquestionably full, bouncy major chords with Geddy providing low end support and Neil holding the groove steady. This isn’t the section the band shows off in. This is the triumphant moment. The song’s hero has found something and want’s to share it with the listener. He’s happy to say the least and what that something?
Part 6 is the finale: The Fountain, a reprise of Part 2 with a little bit more push, courtesy of Neil adding more 8th note accent on the ride and clearer definition of beats 2 and 4. The song ends out on a quiet note – a return to the acoustic guitar followed by one final swath of cymbal. A fitting period on clearly one of the band’s most elaborate, thought out, experimental but tiring works.
Structurally, ‘The Necromancer’ and ‘Fountain’ both have one thing in common that will rear it’s head again on 2112: building long songs using the soft-loud-soft back and forth. Each of these major Rush epics so far have begun soft, transitioned to a loud section, transitioned back into a soft section and would either alternate and end on a loud triumph or a soft note. For most, this might not be a big issue. But after listening to these songs over and over again for this month with new ears, it’s an interesteing phenomeon to see how the band changed their writing when it comes to progressive rock epics over the years. They began with this soft-loud alternation, but then matured into whole ideas that wouldn’t change on the dime so abruptly (see all of A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres and even Clockwork Angels).
Overall, it’s no surprise that Caress of Steel was received the way it was. This was, even years later listening to it for this review, a bizarre album. It merges the old Rush with new progressive Rush in a way that is over the top and in your face. Imagine looking at this record for the first time and seeing a 19-minute song on the B-side. Imagine what would be going through your head as you saw that and then listened to it. The only feelings would either be disgust or excitement. The album, at the time, didn’t really please anyone. Hard rock fans were used to short, 4-minute rockers and the progressive fans (wherever they were and in whatever capacity) probably wanted something different.
None the less without Caress of Steel, there would be nothing to successfully bridge the gap from Fly by Night to the band’s first true masterpiece 2112 two years later. The band wouldn’t have fallen down as hard as they did only to come back stronger than ever with 2112 and beyond. In some ways, Caress of Steel needed to happen in order to give us the Rush that we remember so fondly. Without it, the band might not have ever broken new ground in their own way.
Caress of Steel (1975)
- ”Bastille Day” 4:39
- “I Think I’m Going Bald” 3:41
- “Lakeside Park” 4:10
- “The Necromancer 12:33
- “The Fountain of Lamneth” 19:57
Terry Brown | Arranger, Producer |
Erwig Chuapchuadua | Guitar (Steel) |
Geddy Lee | Bass, Composer, Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals |
Alex Lifeson | Composer, Guitar |
Neil Peart | Composer, Drums |
Rush | Arranger, Primary Artist, Producer |
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