Rush - Permanent Waves (1980)

I can't describe the concept of Rush's Permanent Waves album with one word, like I could with Moving Pictures (motion).  I couldn't even describe the concept of Permanent Waves in a paragraph, as I'm not even sure of what the overall arching theme is.  But who cares?  Permanent Waves is an astonishing album, brimming with challenging, dynamic music and some of Neil Peart's most insightful lyrics and expanding Rush's boundaries as a progressive power trio.  Alex Lifeson's memorable guitar solos and Peart's hyperkinetic drumming blend seamlessly with Geddy Lee's inventive bass lines and keyboard riffs and - always the icing on the cake - his free-spirited, wailing vocals.  Rush in 1980 were still suffering slings and arrows from professional (as in paid, not expert) rock critics, with their fellow Canadian Alan Niester dismissing Lee's voice as a cross between Robert Plant and Donald Duck.  But it's Lee's enunciation and his ability to give Peart's intellectual lyrics a sense of fiery urgency and indignance that makes him not a great singer but a great rock and roll singer.

If there is a common theme between the six tracks on Permanent Waves, it's the collision of irresistible forces not with static objects but with each other.  The album storms out of the gate with "The Spirit of Radio," a full-throated rocker carried by a celestial synthesizer line and a Lifeson guitar solo that spells Lee's vocal for piercing effect.  The song is both an appreciation of radio and a lament for what corporate interests had begun to turn it into.  "Freewill" reinforces Peart's obsession with self-determination, the urgent lyrics endorsing a clear path to a better future while offering both a balm and a challenge to those resigned to fate. The crunchy guitar riffs of "Freewill" offer a sense of menace, while Lee proves once again that  he's the most thoughtful synthesizer programmer in North America northeast of Stevie Wonder.

Rush produced very few love songs, and Permanent Waves has both of them.   "Entre Nous" is a sharp power ballad that explores the differences and the emotional void between two lovers, while "Different Strings" is a quiet, more subtle work of romantic introspection underlined by Lifeson''s gentle guitar growl in the fadeout.  But the two epic tracks that close each side both make the case for Rush as master composers who avoid the tedium normally associated with long, extended prog compositions.  "Jacob's Ladder" is an ominous depiction of a passing storm with as much tension as one might feel with the coming of severe weather, the crescendo at the end providing an ecstatic dissipation.  "Natural Science," the closing cut, is a three-part dissertation of cause and effect, drawing parallels of the intimacy of microorganisms in tide pools o the expansion of the universe and man's role in it, coming full circle at the end with the sound of cashing waves.  Such a composition from other prog bands played on the radio would be a signal for a bathroom break; you don't get that vibe from "Natural Science" because you're to busy tapping your feet to the music and immersing yourself in the literary words on the lyric sheet. 

Released at the beginning of 1980, Permanent Waves was Rush's opening salvo in their quest to become one of the most relevant rock bands of the new decade, an aspiration they achieved the following year with Moving Pictures - in spades.  But they could never hope to be the coolest rock band of the eighties, a decade dominated by hair bands, and certainly not the coolest musical act of a decade in which the ground moved under rock's feet and transferred coolness and hipness to MTV pop divas and pretty-boy New Romantic British groups.  As the decade wore on, Rush would try to contemporize their sound, but their commitment to the substance that underpinned their music remained, and they weren't about to cater to the "in" crowd, much to the relief of their outcast fans.  It was really just a question of honesty.

Yeah, honesty.