Test For Echo - Rush (CD 1996)

While I really liked the album Counterparts, I found that as time went on I liked it less and less. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's a great album but it is not the masterpiece that I thought it was when I first started listening to it. Test for Echo is a different story.


Test For Echo was a Birthday present to me from one of my buddies. I wasn't expecting much because at the time I was starting to get a little tired of Rush and was looking for something new. Test For Echo completely changed my mind on that and reminded me why I was ever a Rush fan.

Test For Echo has a very peaceful into with a cool guitar line and then breaks into a very fast run. Almost as if you can see yourself getting shot up into the sky like a rocket. The song does alternate but all-in-all it is a very fast paced and beautiful song. It is definitely one of those songs I have to listen to every time I listen to the album. Driven is a pretty good song and well written. It is not as fast-paced as Test For Echo but it certainly is not a slow song. At first I didn't think that much of it but then I saw the cool video for it when I went to see Rush in concert, and then it kinda grew on me (sometimes it takes a music video to help you really appreciate how good a song really is). I wouldn't say that it is one of my absolute favorites on the album but it is still a very good song. Half the World is a slow song but it has a very cool laid-back feel to it.

The Color of Right is another song at about the same pace as Half the World. It's interesting but it is not one of the tracks on this album that gets a lot of replay. Time and Motion. I can understand why a lot of people don't like this one. It isn't quite as cohesive as some of the other tracks on this album. I personally like this track a lot though, I really love the keyboard bits that were blended in with the guitars. It is a great track to listen to when you are relaxed as it just sucks you in and takes you on a journey. Totem picks up the pace and has a sound that reminds me a lot of the sound that the band captured on the Roll the Bones album. It has a very light feel to it.

Dog Years made me very nervous when I first heard it. The fast-paced guitar into was just a little to close to the grunge/alternative sound that was so popular at the time. Fortunately the song changes pace and actually isn't too bad when you listen to it. The lyrics on this one definitely are not going to win them any awards though. Another song that isn't a winner for lyrics is Virtuality "Net Boy, Net Girl, Send your info. around the world. . . put your message in a modem and throw it in the cybersea." With that said, the instrumentation more than makes up for it. It is a faster-paced song with a heavier sound to it and it is VERY well written. This makes it one of my favorites from the album. Resist is a slow paced song. It is well written, with well thought out lyrics and flows very well.

Limbo is another one of my favorites from the album and Rush can add it to it's long list of outstanding instrumentals. To the people who complained earlier about the muttering voices, one of them is supposed to be Dracula shouting in an angry voice "whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist." It adds a little bit of a comical element to a very cool instrumental. Carve Away the Stone is another outstanding piece from this album. The song is very cohesive and well written.

The music from this album fits in very well with the whole winter theme that this album has. Very good music to go with the superb album cover. I love the setting of the stone structure and satellite dishes in the artic wasteland. It's unfortunate that it's successor (Vapor Trails) is such a let down (discordant, not cohesive at all).