Without doubt one of the finest works in their canon, Rush's third album was a huge step forward for the band.

Caress Of Steel is a showcase of stylish, inventive rock music, boasting a strength of songwriting not apparent on the first two albums. But more significantly, there's a depth, an ambitious elegance never hinted at before; it's a much more profound, complete, cohesive statement than the band's two previous recordings (and than most of their subsequent recordings, for that matter).

The music which formed the second side of the original vinyl release is often considered the first Rush 'epic' (all three of the great Rush albums of the 1970s feature a 20 minute tour-de-force, designed to occupy a single side of a vinyl LP). But while The Fountain Of Lamneth is bookended by two versions of the same piece (The Valley and The Fountain) which reinforce this impression, in truth it's more a case of individual pieces united by a common concept rather than component parts… more »

Without doubt one of the finest works in their canon, Rush's third album was a huge step forward for the band.

Caress Of Steel is a showcase of stylish, inventive rock music, boasting a strength of songwriting not apparent on the first two albums. But more significantly, there's a depth, an ambitious elegance never hinted at before; it's a much more profound, complete, cohesive statement than the band's two previous recordings (and than most of their subsequent recordings, for that matter).

The music which formed the second side of the original vinyl release is often considered the first Rush 'epic' (all three of the great Rush albums of the 1970s feature a 20 minute tour-de-force, designed to occupy a single side of a vinyl LP). But while The Fountain Of Lamneth is bookended by two versions of the same piece (The Valley and The Fountain) which reinforce this impression, in truth it's more a case of individual pieces united by a common concept rather than component parts of a single piece; No-one at the Bridge and Bacchus' Plateau, for example, work as standalone songs in their own right in a way that the pieces which form 2112 simply don't, as the band demonstrated on their recent British tour. Nonetheless, Lamneth's constituent songs complement each other beautifully and make up an overall concept piece which is greater even than the sum of its formidable constituent parts.

The concept in question? Life, its journey, the dreams and aspirations which give it its meaning, its 'flame'. The music which is its vehicle is strongly reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, with delicate acoustic passages blending into more traditional power trio fare; powerful yet richly-textured and subtle, really quite sublime. There's a sense of space and an understated grandeur altogether absent from their earlier work.

The rest of the album, that is to say the first side of the original vinyl release, is notable primarily for two songs. Rush's classic account of the French revolution, Bastille Day was a rip-roaring concert opener for years, but starts proceedings on Caress Of Steel in very different, auspicious style, its performance and production conveying a highly unusual and distinctive, eccentrically precise, restrained, gothic feel completely absent from the band's live performances of this song. The other tune of particular note is the wonderful Lakeside Park, a breathtakingly elegant, impressively dynamic piece with some exquisite rhythm guitar textures from a young Alex Lifeson. The Necromancer, a miniature epic in three parts is less convincing; its emphasis on a repetitive, formula heavy rock riff in parts has caused it to age rather badly and it is over-extended, even at its most subtle. But I Think I'm Going Bald, a criminally under-appreciated song in less enlightened quarters of Rush fandom sadly, is a wonderful, expansive rocker with a surprisingly mature, thought-provoking, tongue-in-cheek lyric combined with more eccentric, precisely clipped and quirky guitar work (and listen to the hilarious, off-the-wall guitar break), once again showing just how far they'd come in the short time since their previous album was recorded.

I find that two words repeatedly come to mind when evaluating the best works of Rush: grace and drama. Caress Of Steel is the album where Rush first demonstrated their sense of each. This was the band's very first masterwork, a dramatic improvement on their previous efforts; a captivating, stunning work of art.

They had arrived.