Rush goes all in on progressive rock for the band’s last ‘pure’ progressive album with 1978’s Hemispheres.
The 3 years of Rush’s progressive rock music, starting with 2112 in 1976 and ending with Hemispheres in 1978 have been a musical journey and arguably the band’s biggest maturation period. From 1974 back, the band seemed to be in an identity crisis, unsure of who they were and what their sound was. They began life as a Led Zeppelin-sounding band and continued to sound like a Led Zeppelin band with smarter lyrics and deeper meaning to their songs, but still no answer to the question who is Rush. From 1974 to 1976 the band got an answer: one of music’s most challenging, intellectually stimulating bands. The albums that came from this period of time are the biggest reflections of this answer. The music is tighter, more complete sounding and offers hours of replay value because, if one thing is for sure, you’re going to need at least 10 replays to get an idea of just how deep the music, symbolism runs.
Hemispheres was a doubling down on the band’s progressive rock and really saying to the world that this is who Rush is. The album begins with part 2 of the Cygnus duology, ‘Cygnus X-1 Book 2: Hemispheres’ . Unlike past Rush epics, ‘Book 2’ breaks away from the soft-loud-soft pattern that pigeonholed the band’s last few epics (see Caress of Steel, Fly By Night). ‘Book 2’ hits you hard and only lets up in the last 2 minutes of the song with a quiet, acoustic guitar driven outro before kicking you again with the intro of ‘Circumstances’. Of all the Rush epics so far, ‘Book 2’ sounds the most mature for this reason alone.
And speaking of ‘Circumstances’…
Like A Farewell to Kings, the track listings on Hemispheres’ balance progressive rock epics with technically challenging 4 minute songs. It’s also worth noting that both albums are about the same length of total time; Kings being the longer of the two by just over a minute and a half. On Hemispheres, ‘Circumstances’ and ‘The Trees’ act like this album’s ‘Closer to the Heart’ and ‘Cinderella Man’.
‘Circumstances is another piece driven by Geddy’s in-between-the-notes bass playing with Alex’s guitar playing a support role. The two instruments work musically independent of one another with the Neil’s drums acting as the only glue holding the whole song together. The members meet in the musical middle for a unison chorus riff around the 2 minute mark and again for the bridge section after the synth-xylophone-bell breakdown around the 2:30 mark.
Oh yea – and the whole song alternates between 4/4 and 3/4.
‘The Trees’ is the other song on this album that comes off as deceptively difficult with each instrument moving in a different direction and only united by musical theme and drum groove. The song is majority instrumental with lyrics only bookending the opening and the ending portions of the song.
Last but not least is ‘La Villa Strangiato’, the band’s first attempt at long-form songwriting and moving away from epic, thematic songwriting and gained a reputation as one of the band’s most challenging songs both for them and others. Moreover, ‘Strangiato’ is the band’s first totally instrumental song (one of what will later be 8 total as a whole band; 12 if you include Neil’s drum solos) is essentially one of Rush’s prog anthems minus the lyrics – and it definitely shows. The time that Geddy is spent not singing is directly channeled back into his bass playing and collaborative songwriting with Neil and Alex , making ’Strangiato’ a very, very technical song that takes the listener up, down, left, right and everywhere in between.
The song starts out with a giant crescendo finally peaking with the full band making their musical entrance at the 2:07 mark with one of the song’s many musical themes, a fast paced winding and weaving musical journey that makes you feel like you’re ears are running to keep up with the band’s speed and movements. The piece slows down, as if to take breath from the marathon entrance around the 3:30 mark and makes a full slow down at 3:40. We’re then treated to what feels like a strolling tempo, guided by Alex’s solo guitar – partly reversed, partly non-reversed – before building back up around the 4:30 mark where the drums become more intricate and colorful. Geddy’s bass makes a return and as a listener, you can feel the song regaining strength before the next musical theme to come at around the 6 minute mark.
Here, the band is back in full kick. At the 6:10 mark mark is a short, but what I believe to be the most challenging bass break ever, emerges:
It’s a break that lasts 2 bars, and aside from the ‘Roundabout’ bass line, I can’t think of a bass riff that has challenged so many bass players a. just to understand what is actually being played and b. how to actually play it.
Before you can recapture yourself from wondering what the heck that bass line was, you’re right back with the whole band blasting through another Alex solo around the 7:00 minute mark. By this time, you’re likely to have lost track of the song time and probably be amazed that you’ve been listening to the same song for 7 minutes.
By the 8:00 minute mark, we’re rounding the exit of the song with a reprise of the theme back at the 4:30 mark, this time starting out slower before kicking back to the faster tempo from before. Towards the end of the song, the band reprises their earlier themes one after another all the way to the finish before ending on another single bar Geddy bass break.
‘Strangiato’ is a great example of just how far Rush’s long songwriting has progressed. If you look back to Fly by Night or Caress of Steel, the band’s long songs were rather formulaic: acoustic guitar, guitar solo, exposition, acoustic guitar, guitar solo, etc. Marking the near end of the band’s progressive rock journey is a song that flows and feels fluid to listen to. At just about 9 minutes, you lose track of time and you’re so invested in the song. Like a good story, a good composition causes you to lose track of time and keeps you wondering what will come next, how will this passage end, what’s next for XYZ. ‘Strangiato’ does that without ever feeling repetitive or winded
Hemispheres is another Rush album that feels very complete. At 4 songs and just over 30 minutes of combined play time, the album feels like it gets out everything it needs to say. It resolves the Cygnus epic, reels you back in with 2 thematically deep songs and rounds off with a giant instrumental piece, the band’s only one so far. The album doesn’t try to pad the sides with filler songs like we’ve seen on 2112 and Caress of Steel, but instead each song has a place and keeps the album moving. For me personally, I’m left wanting more once the album is over. I’m still surprised how fluidly the album moves and before I know it, the last notes of ‘La Villa’ are ringing out and the album flips back to ‘Cygnus’.
It’s an album that feels mature, as if the band is now smarter and wiser from their past musical experiments only 3 short years earlier. In the next segment, Rush takes pop music and does it just how the band could.
Hemispheres (1978)
- “Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres” 18:08
- “Circumstances” 3:42
- “The Trees” 4:46
- “La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence)” 9:35
John Brand | Assistant Engineer, Mixing Assistant |
Terry Brown | Arranger, Engineer, Mixing, Producer |
Fin Costello | Photography |
Mike Donegani | Engineer |
Yosh Inouye | Photography |
Bob King | Art Direction |
Brian Lee | Mastering |
Geddy Lee | Bass, Composer, Guitar, Guitar (Bass), Keyboards, Moog Synthesizer, Pedals, Synthesizer, Unknown Contributor Role, Vocals |
Alex Lifeson | Composer, Guitar, Guitar (12 String), Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Classical), Guitar (Electric), Pedals, Synthesizer |
Bob Ludwig | Mastering |
Pat Moran | Engineer |
Declan O’Dogerty | Engineer |
Declan O’Doherty | Engineer |
Neil Peart | Bells, Chimes, Composer, Cowbell, Crotale, Drums, Gong, Temple Blocks, Timpani, Wind Chimes |
Reno Ruocco | Engineer |
Rush | Arranger, Primary Artist, Producer |
Ray Staff | Mastering |
Hugh Syme | Art Direction, Artwork |
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