The one Rush song that only features Alex Lifeson
Those who don’t believe music can be transportive have never listened to the right music. If you put in your earphones, play ‘Hope’ by Rush, and close your eyes, you will find yourself ascending in no time. The lone guitar dances up and down the threat, creating a cinematic atmosphere that is maximalist in terms of how much it stimulates the listener but minimalist in terms of what’s actually going on.
Rush is a band that constantly gives regardless of what kind of sound they are aspiring to make. While some of their albums are built around complex narratives and subscribe to typical prog-rock structures, others are created to be radio-friendly. For instance, their album Moving Pictures had songs that were a bit shorter but still gave fans the complex nature of Rush that they were used to.
The most important thing for Rush was working together to create such exciting music. Each band member was an expert in the instrument they played, and it had to be a joint effort to combine that expertise so that they could make an album that continued to impress fans who had grown used to musical excellence.
For the most part, the band was able to do that fairly successfully. The albums were team efforts that came out strong. Granted, Geddy Lee admitted he was never quite happy with any of them, but he chalked this down to the pitfalls of being a perfectionist rather than the band actually making bad albums.
“I never finished a record I was totally happy with,” he said in an interview with The Guardian, when talking about his body of work, “But I think it’s a fool’s errand [to redo it]. I would not want to redo anything. Let it stand for what it was, warts and all.”
Even though the band worked as a unit for the majority of their music, there are odd songs that are more solo efforts from individual members. One of these tracks is the previously mentioned transportive track ‘Hope’. On this song, Alex Lifeson takes the reins as he delivers a stellar instrumental track showcasing his guitarist talents while still being incredibly entertaining.
Having a solo instrumental track on a Rush album is a bold move, given that what many people love about the band is how busy their sound is and how experimental they are when approaching song structure. An instrumental track risks stepping too far away from these qualities to be engaging. Still, Lifeson shows us why he is one of the very best in the way he delivers the exciting barrage of licks, chord arpeggios and solos.
The song works incredibly well on the album Snakes and Arrows, too. It bridges a gap between the songs ‘The Way The Wind Blows’ and ‘Faithless’, giving listeners a brief breather before returning to their regularly scheduled programming.
