| Reviews for Rush's Test for Echo |
| Lifeless - 40% |
| Written by DawnoftheShred
on February 18th, 2009
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| If you thought the 80’s were a tough decade for Rush, the 90’s would prove to be even tougher. Starting strong with Roll the Bones (just as the 80’s started strong), the band carved out a direction that even their most dedicated fans wouldn’t have expected: guitar-driven modern hard rock. Counterparts was the first album to utilize this much heavier, much crappier sound, but would it be the last? Well… Test for Echo is a continuation of that Counterparts sound; that is, Rush playing hard alternative. Alex Lifeson’s guitar has a heavy crunch to it (“Driven,” “Virtuality,” “Dog Years”) and he often experiments with dissonance in a grungy manner that might have been cool had he been playing with Pearl Jam or somebody (“Time and Motion”). He rarely solos, contributing mostly in layering distorted and clean tones for the painfully straightforward songs. More so even than on the albums leading up to it, Test for Echo is exceedingly dull. Peart’s eccentric drumming, Geddy’s fluid bass, Lifeson’s guitarwork: all toned back to the point of acquiescence. Even the synthesizers (now appearing very discretely), seem like afterthoughts. So what the hell are we listening to here? Well I suppose the point here was about the songs, about the lyrics, about the meaning behind the music. Connecting with a 90’s rock audience was not achieved through instrumental prowess, but through simplicity, repetition, and identifiable vocals. Now Geddy’s bass is actually still pretty strong at times, but listening to him dictate from atop Peart’s socially-conscious soapbox becomes positively exhausting. I miss the wailing, spirited Lee who could attach meaning and emotion to occasionally cheesy fantasy lyrics; I can do without the soft-spoken, lifeless Lee who barely makes an impression in these TfE songs. And as far as cheese goes, it’s Peart delivering the goods like never before: from spiritual hooey (“Totem”) to social matters (“Half the World,” “The Color of Right), to embarrassingly bad metaphor (“Dog Years”), he says a lot without saying much at all. I’ll take cheesy sci-fi or Ayn Rand adaptations over preachy bullshit (“Resist,” possibly the worst song they’ve ever written) any day. There’s just no feeling in these songs, and the band doesn’t even try to convince you otherwise. Even the instrumental “Limbo” can’t bring much of the classic Rush sound to mind. A very shallow rock record, it’s the Hold Your Fire of the 90’s. Interesting only in that the basswork is neat (“Driven” verse especially) and there is some nifty tonal architecture (similar to what Tool might do on an off-day) the band occasionally constructs, Test for Echo is one of those albums for the diehard Rush fanatic only. |
| Test for Heartbeat - 55% |
| Written by Metalich
on September 3rd, 2007
|
| Rush releases what is their 16th studio release, and what will ultimately be their last album of the 90’s: Test for Echo. Meant to represent the band asking the hypothetical question of searching for intelligent life in this darned crazy world, but ultimately it’s an apt metaphor for a band searching for their fan base, many departing after a decade of dwindling reasons to care about this apparently venerable franchise. The new direction started on Counterparts continues, Rush composing another release driven by pure guitar sounds. Goodbye to keyboards and over the top musical extras, but not the heavy hand of production. Over dubbing and layering run rampant, and the only way the guitar sounds heavy is due to much meticulous engineering or the patent pending 90’s excursion into rambling distorted guitars. Would it have killed them to just go out their and bust out these songs like the 3 man rock band they once were? Seriously, an album where Rush circa late 70’s does their take on the 90’s would have been interesting, but certainly not this – An alternative 90’s band that does their take on Rush. But even that could have been more interesting than this. This is just easy and safe writing. Once again, the band performs well. But the layers of production and repeated simple writing ethic (the correct term is “Phoned in”) make that irrelevant. Even Liberace himself would have a tough time making chop-sticks sound interesting. Same with the lyrics, I don’t always expect a lot in the lyrics, but I do expect more from one Neal Peart. The man who wrote “Xanadu”, “Tress”, Hemispheres”, or “2112” is capable of better than songs about internet relationships or a dog as metaphor for mans life (?!). The formula is simple – Lifeson play the same alternative rambling leads, or an actually pretty good background lead to Geddy’s bass lead, while Peart plays solid percussion, but nothing particularly amazing for a man with his reputation; each song a typical verse/chorus that repeats and blends with the next song to repeat the cycle. “Test for Echo” opens up, and it is solid enough. Lifeson sounds like he is having a good time, in the front and back when needed. This is not “Something for Nothing” by a long shot, but it is solid. “Driven”, “Half the World”, “The Color of Right” are all decent, but nothing special. After this the album does a repeat of Counterparts and declines, sporadically providing decent songs, but also poor to average filler. In fact, this album falls further as it just starts to blur as your mind wanders to more interesting things. In total, some of these songs are decent, but none can carry an album, making the totality a mere blah. If you want to bother, you can rip a few songs off this to add to half of Counterparts and make a decent Rush 90’s CD. I have to declare this to be the worse Rush album to date. At least with every other album, including the ones I have rated average to poor, there is at least one or two songs I find the urge to play once in a while. I haven’t picked this one up in years, and only then to write this review. In the end, I can’t shake the feeling the guys were on cruise after 20 years and 15 albums. |
| The cover art is godly, and... - 95% |
| Written by HealthySonicDiet
on December 18th, 2003
|
| Like Queensryche's Hear in the Now Frontier, I also once rented Rush's album Test for Echo from the library and decided to burn it upon a subsequent listen. God, I love the library where I live. You can rent ten albums at once and return them about a month later. They're metal selection is slim to none, however. I'm not so sure what Rush is doing on this site, as I'm yet to hear evidence of heavy distortion, heavy soloing, etc., but I suppose they have been a large enough influence on the metal world to be included on this site. Anyhow, this album has one of the most captivating covers I've ever seen. I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but if you're getting a very good impression by that cover, you should go with your gut feeling, and that's what I did. The cover consists of a towering sculpture of a person made out of large marble rocks standing on the beach. The music, of course, is also noteworthy. The only way I'm familiar with Rush is from their singles that I've released, and this album shows the band in an entirely different respective. Every song on this album is less processed and more atmospheric than any single I've heard from them on the radio. Many of the songs are sung with such an emotional sincerity that it's easy to become attached to the music even for just the pure feeling of it. Catchiness abounds on this record as well. Inspiring acoustic work is to be found on Driven, nice syncopated leads on Virtuosity, and a 'wordly' vibe emanating from the song "Half the World". Lyrically, this album is also a standout. The lyrics deal with everything from the shallow experience of talking to someone on the Internet to politics and you can tell Geddy Lee means what he's singing.(Can you believe I once thought Rush's vocalist was a girl? *shrugs) This album probably shouldn't be considered the best in their catalogue, but it stands out as a bold, expressive piece of art with enough driving aggression and melody to become revered by Rush fans, progressive rock and metal fans, and rock and metal fans in general. For its cover art alone, this album is worth picking up. |
| This echo is worth testing... - 88% |
| Written by doomsoldier
on September 1st, 2003
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| Although I don't claim to be the biggest rush fan, I've heard more than enough of their work to know what their fundamental sound is and Test For Echo exibits a good show of what Rush is all about - diversified rock. While most seem to consider this to be one of their less ingenious pieces, I find it to be both well-balanced and extremely catchy, most of it anyway. Of course as in most albums there are the stand out songs such as Virtuality, Driven, Totem, and the title track, but what's really great about this CD is that there are no bad songs. Basically, you can stomp your feet to any track, whether or not you really hear anything terribly creative or unique in it. Some may argue that more of the same isn't good enough, but Rush can't be expected to create a new musical theme every time they come out with a new album. I think it's perfectly fine to re-use a good basic sound mechanism as long as you keep shifting the gears around a bit, and that's just what the band does. I did notice that, unlike the majority of Rush's music, I needed to listen to Test For Echo a few times over before I really caught on to it. It had to grow on me, which came as a surprise since I was used to the usual pick-up-and-play nature of the band. This may be a good thing though, as a CD with more depth will hold your interest for a more expansive period of time. Lyrically, Rush brings forth their usual blend of thoughtful poetry, real life questions and nonsensical rhyming sequences. If you enjoyed these before, this new serving will sit just right with you. Those who don't care for this style will hopefully be able to appreciate the album for it's music alone, which is not a very hard thing to do anyway. Test For Echo is a smooth ride through the avenue of traditional progressive rock. Rush fans need not be told to check this out, and new listeners should find plenty of solid, if not entirely unique, musical enjoyment. |