Fly by Night [Remaster] - Rush (CD 1997)

Prior to this album, drummer John Rutsey left the band and was replaced by Neil Peart. Peart, of course, provided the final ingredient which made the band so popular through the years. In addition to being a fantastic drummer, Peart also provided the lyrics and format that really made the band unique in the rock n' roll world.

Before explaining why Peart was so important, let me mention a thing or two about the previous album, which was simply called Rush. On that one, Bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson wrote some powerful music that was obviously based on bands such as Led Zeppelin and Cream. The music was competent if not particularly trend-setting, but the lyrics were perfectly awful. Hearing Lee sing idiotic things such as "They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am," was sheer torture.

So, it was a great thing when Peart showed up and provided some lyrical depth to the band. Gone were the simplistic, "oooh, baby!" lyrics of the past. Those were replaced by some slightly intellectual lyrics that were far more advanced that previous offerings from Rush. On this album, those albums are there, as are the hard-rock, guitar-based jams that the band loved at the time.

Additionally, there's something else on here, too -- the band starting fooling around with the complicated, extended epics that the band used to make a huge dent on the "prog rock" world with albums such as 2112 and Hemispheres. "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" clocks in at 8:30 and is all about a classic battle between good (represented by the Snow Dog) and evil (By-Tor). That song has plenty of the hard rock riffs with which the band was familiar, but also touched on some themes not found in the music of other bands. That tune evokes images from Greek mythology, anong other things, and that was quite unique at the time. The band hadn't yet mastered the "prog rock" epics that made it famous, yet, and didn't do so on the next album, Caress of Steel, either.

Still, both Fly by Night and Caress of Steel were important because they set the groundwork for 2112, a masterpiece with an extended title track about a world controlled entirely by technology. Rush, on both Fly by Night and Caress of Steel, started working on the techniques that made 2112 such a success.

There's a story behind "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" that I just love. Evidently, the members of Rush were at a party at someone's house. The person hosting the party had two dogs -- one that ran around biting people and a friendly white one. A Rush roadie dubbed the biting one "By-Tor" and the other one "the Snow Dog." From that, Peart came up with this song and the rest is history. That's just a nifty story no matter how you look at it.

As for the rest of the album, you've got the typical, early-Rush jams. Loud guitars, nifty riffs and Geddy Lee's distinctive falsetto vocals. There are some simplistic lyrics here, such as on "Best I Can" in which Lee declares "I am what I am" (I always think of Popeye), but that's fine -- the band was maturing and showed a lot of potential on this one. Others to listen for are the powerful, fist-pumping "Anthem," the groove-heavy "Beneath, Between and Behind" and the absolutely beautiful "In the End."

The only song I really hate here is "Rivendell," which is obviously based on the peaceful, village of Elves in J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy. That thing just drags along for no apparent purpose for about five minutes. Well, it's okay for the band to fail here and there -- the rest of the album is solid enough to make up for "Rivendell."

So, here's an album on which the band's chemistry started to gel and Rush churned out some fine tunes. It's not near the level of the finer works to come, but there's enough on here to merit repeated listens.