My partner just walked in whilst I was listening to this album and said, 'what's that your listening to, Phil Collins?' Don't worry, this won't affect my attitude or mood towards 'Power Windows'. Whilst some fans bemoan the shift Rush had away from guitars and towards synths, this was the mid-eighties, after all. I mean, Rush had always been technically proficient, so I wouldn't expect some clunking, badly produced mid-eighties album. You know, like the ones Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, etc, etc - produced in the mid-eighties. Alex Lifeson proves here, even with this album being synth led, that there is life in the guitar yet. There was a lot of talk in the Eighties about 'real' instruments being dead, you see. He proves that assumption wrong. 'Marathon' for instance sees a classic guitar solo sail through the mid section of the tune, most enjoyably. Neil Peart plays, what from the sounds of it seems like one of those electronic drum kits. Even the bass has been processed through something electronic sounding. It doesn't bother me, because the seperation of the instruments is good. Each instrument shines through being played by a good musician and played in an imaginative way. To repeat, this isn't a Phil Collins album.
There are perhaps no out and out Rush classics on 'Power Windows', yet I would say the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The songs are of a piece stylistically, yet with enough variation in the way the instruments are played song to song to keep you interested. You may say that with each tune being 5/6 minutes long, that some suffer from padding. I don't find that. Each song moves through variations sections and stages. If anything, i'd have liked a couple of have been longer still. 'Manhatten Project' for example is fairly stunning to my ears, a symphonic pop/rock song during some parts, surpremely melodic throughout all parts. 'Big Money' is a catchy little number but more importantly for some, the keyboard and especially the bass parts are superb. Just listen to the bass, concentrate. It does great things. Another highlight on the LP is the 2nd song, 'Grand Designs'. Again, superb bass and plenty of melodies, decent lyrics too as this song shines. It could have been a hit, for my money. So, 'Power Windows' rises above the mediocrity that was a lot of mid-eighties rock music. It's an intelligent album, it's well produced and the writing and playing are excellent. What more did you want?
Track List:
The Big Money
Grand Designs
Manhattan Project
Marathon
Territories
Middletown Dreams
Emotion Detector
Mystic Rhythms
There are perhaps no out and out Rush classics on 'Power Windows', yet I would say the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The songs are of a piece stylistically, yet with enough variation in the way the instruments are played song to song to keep you interested. You may say that with each tune being 5/6 minutes long, that some suffer from padding. I don't find that. Each song moves through variations sections and stages. If anything, i'd have liked a couple of have been longer still. 'Manhatten Project' for example is fairly stunning to my ears, a symphonic pop/rock song during some parts, surpremely melodic throughout all parts. 'Big Money' is a catchy little number but more importantly for some, the keyboard and especially the bass parts are superb. Just listen to the bass, concentrate. It does great things. Another highlight on the LP is the 2nd song, 'Grand Designs'. Again, superb bass and plenty of melodies, decent lyrics too as this song shines. It could have been a hit, for my money. So, 'Power Windows' rises above the mediocrity that was a lot of mid-eighties rock music. It's an intelligent album, it's well produced and the writing and playing are excellent. What more did you want?
Track List:
The Big Money
Grand Designs
Manhattan Project
Marathon
Territories
Middletown Dreams
Emotion Detector
Mystic Rhythms