My Amazon Reviews: Rush "Hemispheres"

My Brain Hurts 
3 Out of 5 Stars

"Hemispheres" was the final album in Rush's epic period, which comprised "2112," "A Farewell To Kings" and then this album. Made up of a mere four songs, one of which is the tremendous virtuoso instrumental "La Villa Strangito, the band was still playing their convincing hard rock/prog rock hybrid, but the themes were beginning to wear thin. Neal Peart's allegorical lyrics had begun to repeat themselves to a point where accepting something like "The Trees" was getting to be a difficult proposition.

In fact, the album's main premise almost felt like an inside joke. Rush? Aren't they the Canadian band that has all those intellectual songs? Why, yes, and they just titled their new album after the two halves of the brain! And that astronaut who gut sucked into the black hole on "A Farewell to Kings?" He's back and he's found the secret to bring eternal peace to all those Greek Gods hanging out on the top of Mount Olympus. When I was a college freshman in 1978, this was pretty heavy stuff. Some thirty plus years later, it just sounds dippy.

What you still get from "Hemispheres" is just how incredible Rush is as a band. Between Neal Peart's one-of-a-kind drumming, Alex Lifeson's blindingly sharp guitar and Geddy Lee's keening voice, these guys played their rock like no other band. Both "The Trees" and "Circumstances" worked the traditional verse-chorus writing (well, almost) structure as a near preview of what would appear on their next album, the superior "Permanent Waves" and explode into brilliance on "Moving Pictures."