The Arkanssouri Blog.: NOW I remember . . .

One of the reasons we at the Bear Review never got around to reviewing Atlas Shrugged. The philosophy is so integrated into the text that it's almost impossible to review it solely as a work of fiction. You wind up reviewing rational self-interest itself.

I'm not very happy with my Mouthshut review of Atlas Shrugged. I submitted it anyway.

I'm much happier with my reviews of two Rush albums, Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures, and Metallica's black album.

The Rush reviews aren't up yet, because I had to submit Rush as a new category to be considered. Dunno how long it'll take. So if you can't wait to read them, here are my reviews:

Permanent Waves

The Spirit of Radio, the first song on the album, sets the stage for a good eighteen minutes of music. How can you hate a song that starts with "Begin the day with a friendly voice"? You can't. This is easily the poppiest of the songs on the album.
Fortunately, in this case, being radio-friendly doesn't preclude it from being a
good song.

Then comes the gem of the album, "Freewill," the national anthem of secular humanists, Libertarians, and teenage Objectivists alike. The song dismisses pessimists, mystics, and fence-sitters with lyrical scorn. People either love this song or hate it; there's no middle ground. Pick a side, but remember that if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. I will choose a path that's clear; I will choose "Freewill."

Third is "Jacob's Ladder." It's mostly instrumental, but like the song's thunderheads, it rumbles in a distant overture, at least until it gets to the closing synthesizers, which sound like some guy alone in his basement with a Casio and too much time on his hands.

Unfortunately, that's where the eighteen minutes end, and we still have another eighteen minutes to go. Back in the days when we still used cassettes, this is where we'd flip it over to side two.

"Entre Nous" isn't terrible, but it doesn't quite live up to the first three songs on
the album. Perhaps partially because of the title, it's rather forgettable.

Then we have "Different Strings." This is another one of those songs for the Dungeons & Dragons constituency. The stringwork tries to evoke a mixture of Dust In The Wind and Stairway to Heaven, but it can't quite pull it off, and the vocals don't work with it at all.

The last song, "Natural Science," begins with running water and seagulls, reminding me that this is a good time to go to the bathroom, so I can skip most of the song and be back in time for the album to begin again with "The Spirit of Radio." Natural Science tries way too hard to sound ethereal in the beginning, then switches to Rush's normal vocals in the middle, just before a frenetic UFO lyric, drum and synth sequence. Then it degenerates into what appears to be a jam session of the emotionally disturbed.

Buy this album, I guess. The first half gets an A-plus, even if the second half gets a D. But then, I guess that's what God made fast-forward buttons for.

Moving Pictures

Tom Sawyer. What's there to say about one of the band's signature songs? This is best played at full volume, banging your head and singing "His mind is not for rent to any god or government" at the top of your lungs. What you say about this song is what you say about society.

Red Barchetta. Sounds like some sort of cocktail, maybe made with cherry juice and Kentucky bourbon. But it's not. It's a love song to a car. Or maybe a love song to one's uncle. Either way, a fine one it is.

YYZ opens with the band getting cute with stereophonics and a bell, then transitions into harsh, sledgehammery notes, followed by what can only be described as schizophrenic guitar and drum work. This is where the album begins sinking into something akin to mediocrity and desperation.

Limelight offers a brief reprieve from the abyss of dismality, but it doesn't completely recover before the next song.

The Camera Eye opens with traffic sounds and bizarre synthesizer distortions, mixed in with what appear to be the clicks of a manual typewriter. This may be the weakest track on the album. The opening synthstrumental gets tiresome long before the lyrics kick in.

On the beginning of Witch Hunt, the band falls into the New Age trap of thinking windchimes are musical instruments. This track may appeal to the Dungeons & Dragons crowd, but the rest of us are out of luck.

On the closing track of the album, Vital Signs, the band returns to it's strengths - the Tom Sawyer licks and Free Will vocals. While it's not as strong as those two songs, it's much better than the previous two.

So, is it a horrible album redeemed by three tracks, or a fantastic album ruined by four tracks? I guess that's for you to decide.

In my book, it's worth the purchase price. I can always skip over everything but "Tom Sawyer," "Red Barchetta" and "Limelight."