Welcome to the 100th edition of From My Collection! What started as an exercise in retrospective album reviewing and a trip through yours truly’s vast vinyl arsenal has since turned into a staple of this here little webzine that could. I appreciate every last one of you who has taken the time to click on an FMC and express your own thoughts on whatever album it may be that’s being highlighted. As yesterday marked the 5th anniversary of Rush drummer Neil Peart’s passing, I figured I’d make this special 100th edition of FMC extra personal and highlight the album that started me on this heavy metal journey all those years ago, A Farewell to Kings. Join us as we “dine on honeydew” and “drink the milk of paradise”.
It was the summer of 2008. At the tender age of 9, I was already a full blown classic rock fan, well versed in the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and so forth. Heck, I had already seen both surviving Beatles live at that point, but I digress. While I was familiar with the radio-ready fare of Van Halen, Thin Lizzy, and Led Zeppelin, to name a few, in my little head, I didn’t associate them with anything remotely “hard” or “heavy”, let alone “extreme”; they were just “classic rock”. Frankly, I didn’t know what “heavy” was, at least not consciously. I’m sure I was aware of Ozzy Osbourne by then, but I couldn’t tell you anything about him save for I saw his CDs at Walmart and he looked crazy.
This all changed one fateful summer afternoon. When flipping through my mother’s otherwise “safe” vinyl collection (Simon and Garfunkel, anyone?), I came across an album whose cover had me utterly transfixed: Rush’s A Farewell to Kings. There, sitting in a throne amidst a half demolished building, was a jester, puppet strings and all, an eerie smile stuck on his face. I remember gazing at that cover for what seemed like an eternity. There was something about it that left me mesmerized. Equally mesmerizing were the three strange looking dudes who graced the gatefold. Who were these guys? They didn’t “look” like rockstars, the way Robert Plant or Mick Jagger did. They looked…weird. I had to listen to this album.
Needless to say, one spin of A Farewell to Kings changed the course of my life forever. I had never heard such ambitious musicianship, such ripping guitars, and those utterly ear-piercing vocals. I thought, in my little head, “THIS must be what they call heavy metal!” As fate would have it, I’d learn soon after that Rush happened to be my dad’s favorite band. What ensued from there was a crash course on Canada’s finest musical export, followed by the obligatory introduction to Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. From then on, I was never the same (Thanks dad!).
So there’s the significance AFtK holds in my life. How about for our heroes, Dirk, Lerxst, and Pratt? Well, after putting ALL their chips on the table with 2112 (1976), A Farewell served as a bit of a victory lap for the prog metal pioneers. The commercial success of 2112 defied all logic and record industry “know-how”. After two commercial duds in Fly by Night (1975) and Caress of Steel (1975), Mercury wanted something short, succinct, and most importantly, sellable. Rush responded with the musical equivalent of a middle finger in the form of a 20 and a half minute suite chronicling an authoritarian dystopia and its ultimate demise, set in the not too distant future.
As the album would go on to sell north of 3 million units in America alone, Mercury waved their arms in the air in surrender, figuring it was better to let these three musical visionaries continue to do whatever the hell it was they did best. So long as it sold units and put asses in seats, that was all that mattered. As a result, A Farewell expands upon many of the musical themes introduced on 2112 and its predecessors, while introducing new sounds into the mix. For what is perhaps Rush’s most diverse and nuanced album up until that point, A Farewell plays a crucial role in the continuing evolution of the subgenre we know today as progressive metal.
The album opens with its riveting title track. Starting off with a delicate acoustic guitar/synth/chime passage, “A Farewell to Kings” quickly transforms into a powerful ’70s prog metal romp, filled with hard-nosed riffs and the shrill cries of Geddy Lee, serenading us about “Cities full of hatred, fear and lies”. It’s almost a musical and lyrical prototype for Awaken the Guardian era Fates Warning, albeit unleashed a decade earlier. Also included is a dazzling instrumental passage, in which we’re treated to the jazz-like precision of Lee and Peart as a rhythm section, while Alex Lifeson lets it rip on the six string. As I’ve said for years, it’s Lifeson’s guitar work alone, his metallic approach to riffing and soloing, that set Rush apart from the likes of Yes, Genesis, and so forth. Mere “progressive rock”, this was not.
Side A continues to astound with the second and last song of the album’s first half, “Xanadu”. You know, most bands would sell their souls to write a song half as brilliant as “A Farewell to Kings”. Meanwhile, here’s Rush making said epic opener sound like a mere rehearsal in comparison to “Xanadu”. The sci-fi themes of past releases are explored yet again in this cerebrally surreal suite that checks off all the boxes of a ’70s Rush epic: Powerful riffs, picturesque lyricism, intense soloing, air-drum worthy fills, soaring vocals, atmosphere beyond belief…am I missing anything? Some days, I’ll wake up convinced this is the greatest song they ever did, and I don’t think you can blame me. If you asked me to point to one song that embodied ’70s Rush, it would be “Xanadu”.
As we flip over to side B, we’re greeted by the “accessible” half of AFtK. Mind you, I put the word accessible in quotation marks for good reason. If Rush were to do anything melodic, hook-laden, or remotely musically conventional over the course of their career, it would still be done on their own terms, without hinderance from mindless suits or ongoing trends. Such was the case of “Closer to the Heart”, which is the closest Rush got to anything remotely commercial since “Fly by Night”. Unsurprisingly, the song, with its arena rock maneuvers and singalong verses, quickly became a staple of rock radio, luring in those previously uninitiated by the first church of Rush. It still receives classic rock radio airplay to this day.
“Cinderella Man” continues to showcase this “accessible”, yet nevertheless intriguing side of the band. Toeing the line between ’70s hard rock and delicate progressive pop, it really is a tale of two songs, managing to sandwich such in the short span of a little over 4 minutes. Mercury liked the song so much that they opted to release it as a single. Granted, it did nothing on the charts, but you can understand why some coke-snorting executive saw the hit potential in “Cinderella Man” over an abridged edit of “Xanadu”. The gentle prog-folk balladry of “Madrigal” gives us one final palette cleanse, before we’re assaulted by AFtK‘s coup de grace.
The first time I heard “Cygnus X-1”, I was convinced it was the heaviest thing known to man. Granted, I was 9 years old, so forgive me for not being familiar with the likes of Sarcófago and Blasphemy at the time. All I knew was at that point in my life, NOTHING I had heard on classic rock radio came close in terms of sheer musical intensity, especially the closing passage with those “spinning, whirling” tremolo riffs and Lee’s desperate shrieks of pure insanity. If I’m being completely honest, upon first listen, I was utterly terrified…yet lured in. I listened to it again, and again, and again, and…well, here we are 17 years later.
Much like 2112 before it, A Farewell to Kings was a creative and commercial triumph. In an age where the progressive rock acts of the early ’70s were reaching senior status, Rush were here to stay, bridging the gap between prog’s first wave and its ’80s reinvention which would bring forth the advent of neo-prog and prog metal proper. The tale of “Cygnus X-1”, at least musically speaking, would be revisited on Hemispheres the following year, but that’s another tale for another day. Until then, be sure to keep us closer to your heart, and we’ll do the same for you.
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