april 15, 2025

Published april 15, 2025 by ad-vinylrecords with 0 comment

Rush - Grace Under Pressure (1984) LP - €20,00

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Grace Under Pressure is the tenth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released April 12, 1984 on Anthem Records. 
After touring for the band’s previous album, Signals (1982), came to an end in mid-1983, Rush started work on a follow-up in August. 
The band had decided to not work with longtime producer Terry Brown, who had collaborated with Rush since 1974. 
The new material accentuated the group’s change in direction towards a synthesizer-oriented sound like its previous album. 
After some difficulty finding a suitable producer who could commit, the album was recorded with Peter Henderson.

Grace Under Pressure was the first Rush album since 1975’s Fly by Night to not be produced by Terry Brown, who was replaced by Peter Henderson (Supertramp, Paul McCartney). The change resulted in a slightly more accessible sound than its predecessor, Signals, and marked the beginning of a period where many Rush fans feel that synths and electronics were used too prominently — in effect pushing guitarist Alex Lifeson into the background. The songwriting and lyrics were still strong however, as evidenced by the video/single “Distant Early Warning” (a tale about nuclear war) and the often-overlooked highlight “Kid Gloves,” one of the album’s few songs to feature Lifeson upfront. 
Other standouts include a tribute to a friend of the band who had recently passed away, “Afterimage,” the disturbing “Red Sector A” (which details a concentration camp), and one of Rush‘s first funk-based songs, “The Enemy Within.” Whereas most other rock bands formed in the 1970s put out unfocused and uninspired work in the 1980s (which sounds very dated), Rush‘s Grace Under Pressure remains an exception.

Musically, the album marks yet another development in Rush’s sound; while continuing to make extensive use of synthesizers as on Signals, the band also experimented by incorporating elements of ska and reggae into some of the songs. 
The guitars played a larger role than on Signals, with Lifeson stating that “I think the guitar on Signals took a bit of a back seat. The keyboards were really upfront … though in a sense that’s what we were trying to achieve, we wanted to go for a different perspective on the whole sound. 
But, possibly, we lost direction at times on Signals.” Lifeson pointed out that there is no acoustic guitar on Grace Under Pressure and the lack of ballad type songs.

"Afterimage" was written about Robbie Whelan, a tape operator at Le Studio who was killed in a car accident a year prior to the album's release. The album was dedicated to his memory.

"Red Sector A" talks about the Holocaust imprisonment camps that were set up during World War II, specifically from the perspective of an unspecified person in the camp.

"The Body Electric" features a guitar solo with an added harmonizing effect with a delay which Lifeson described as "pretty bizarre."

Grace Under Pressure reached number 10 on the Billboard 200 where it reached platinum for selling one million copies.


Side A
A1.  Distant Early Warning - 4:45
A2.  Afterimage - 5:00
A3.  Red Sector A - 5:08
A4.  The Enemy Within - 4:33

Side B
B1.  The Body Electric - 4:58
B2.  Kid Gloves - 4:16
B3.  Red Lenses - 4:39
B4.  Between The Wheels - 5:36

 
Rush
  • Geddy Lee – bass, synthesizers, vocals, production
  • Alex Lifeson – guitars, synthesizers, production
  • Neil Peart – drums, percussion, electronic percussion, production

Companies, etc.

Credits

Notes
Release:  1984
Format:  LP
Genre:  Progressive Rock
Label:  Mercury Records
Catalog#  818476-1

Vinyl:  Goed (VG)
Cover:  Goed (VG)

Prijs: €20,00

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